Hopeless Wanderer
by detective-smartypants
Summary: Not all those who wander are lost.
1. Night Terror

Sometimes you wake up at 4am, covered in a light sheen of sweat, struggling to breathe. It's something that you never found to be the biggest burden in your other homes. Back then, it was safer to be awake than to be asleep. You do what you always do in this situation and you creep down to the kitchen, where you pour a cold glass of water and sit down at the table with your eyes focused on the wall opposite you.

Sometimes, you find yourself running your hand along the faded wood of the table and imaging all the life that this room has held over the years. It's something that you have never really witnessed before. Life. The people in this house don't just survive, but they thrive. They love, they laugh, the live. It's wonderful to witness at times, but you always stand apart and watch, weary to join in, scared to get attached. Jude loves it, and you can't help but be happy to see him feel so warm and surrounded by people who don't treat him like just a possession. You wish he could understand like you do, though. If you get attached, it will hurt ten times more when they take you away. Because they will take you away.

It scares you to think that you might never get to feel anything close to this again in your life when you pack your bags and move on to another house, another family, another situation. You wait for the bad to come every day because it always has and, when it doesn't happen, you wake up in the middle of the night full of a feeling that you can't quite describe. It's not good or bad, it's just there, in the pit of your stomach, nagging at you, reminding you that you _can _feel.

A noise makes you aware that you are not alone and a hand on your shoulder slightly startles you, you whip your head around and see a tired Stef standing behind you with a concerned expression on her features. You hate when they worry because you've never had anyone worry before and you don't quite understand how to respond.

"You should be asleep." she speaks quietly and takes a seat right next to you, rubbing her hand up and down your back. It's nice. "You okay?"

You nod shyly and look down at your hands because you've never been a big fan of eye contact and you don't want to talk about things because being honest is hard.

It's obvious that she doesn't believe you because she stays like that, not saying a word, running her hand comfortingly on your back and staring across the room at the wall.

"Do you wake up in the middle of the night a lot?" She asks, ten minutes into blissful silence.

"I guess. Not all the time, but it happens." You look at her and she narrows her eyes and takes her hand away from your back to rest on your hand.

She nods and takes a deep breath, you can hear birds chirping outside, it makes you feel a little more secure. "I used to wake up during the night all the time before I met Lena."

You nod a little and you close your eyes. You want to block out the sounds and the feelings and the sights. You want to be alone, because then you don't have to be guarded Callie and you can be normal Callie.

You only cry when you know everyone is asleep our out. You only ever say what you are feeling through words in a journal and you never let anyone see. You are guarded because you have to be. You always have been. Sometimes you realise that Stef is like you in some ways. It's been three months since they took you in and you've formed a bond with this woman without wanting it. It only really becomes obvious sometimes like when you were sick with the flu and she was the only one you let comfort you. She's stubborn like you, but she's a much better person than you will ever be. She's kind and she has a huge heart and warm eyes like you've never seen before. You love Lena, too. She's supportive and comforting but you always remind yourself that you can't form yet another connection, so you build your walls higher for her.

"It stopped because I wasn't bottling things up inside. The doctor said that stress causes really bad Insomnia. I used to wake up at 3am every single night and I'd just wander the house, make tea, watch TV. I hated it because it made me feel so awful every day, but I couldn't avoid it. Not until I started to be honest with myself and open up with others."

You shake your head and take your hand away from under hers, hoping that the warmth will stay there for a little longer. "It's not the same thing." You mumble it with a tone of annoyance that makes a flash of disappointment appear across Stef's features. "I'm nothing like anyone here."

Sometimes, darkness consumes you. It seeps through your pores and it fills your entire body and it's like daggers in your lungs when you inhale. What's worse though, is when you exhale and it transfers onto other people. You don't mean to be this way, you wish you could just be a regular teenager like Mariana, but you're not and you never will be. You're so many things and not one of them are good.

"Callie…"

"It's 5am. I'm gonna go shower."

Stef stands up and moves towards you, shaking her head. "You need to trust us, Callie. You have to be honest with us."

"Maybe you think it's that easy," you say "but I have experience and I know what happens when I trust people. It only ends bad."

Before she can respond, you are leaving the room and padding towards the bathroom, ready to prepare yourself for another long day of pretending to fit in.


	2. I speak because I can

**A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys! This will be a multi-chapter fic for those of you who have asked. **

"Dinner's ready!" Stef's voice floats down the hall and you close your eyes and sigh. You've been in bed since you got home from school because, for some reason, you don't feel like being around people. You've managed to play a whole new song on guitar, write a little in your journal and complete your math homework, so you know you can't get into trouble for being lazy.

The smell of chicken floats into the room and you hear your stomach rumble. You are hungry, but for some reason you don't feel like eating, so you lay back on your bed and close your eyes, hoping no one really notices your absence at the table.

You stay that way for a while, until you hear a knock at the door and the bed dips down because someone is sitting there. You don't bother opening your eyes because you know it's either Lena or Stef.

"Callie, time to wake up, dinner is on the table."

Lena's voice is soft. It's something that struck you the moment you met her. It's soft and warm, and sometimes you want to wrap it around you like a blanket because it makes you feel safe and comfortable. It's funny though, because the more she speaks to you, the more you want to push her away. If there's one thing that you know, it's that you don't deserve that sort of comfort.

You mumble something about not being hungry and you expect her to leave, but seconds later there is a cool hand on your forehead and you open your eyes to see her standing over you with a worried look on her face.

"Are you sick?"

There is part of you that wants to say yes to her question because you know that if she thinks you are sick she won't convince you to go downstairs. But you also know that if you tell her that you are sick, she will coddle you and that's something you could do without, aswell. So you shrug your shoulders, close your eyes, and tell her that you just don't feel like any food right now.

It does the trick, and you hear her leaving the room and wandering down stairs and you expect that you will be left alone for the rest of the night.

You must have fallen asleep, because when you hear a knock at the door and you open your eyes, it's darker outside and someone is in the shower. You can hear Mariana and Brandon arguing across the hall and dishes being done down in the kitchen.

You look up and Stef is leaning on the door frame, smiling.

"You think you could try and eat now?" she asks, walking over to the bed and sitting down on the edge. You shake your head.

"Callie, you need to eat something. Does your stomach hurt? I could get you some aspirin?"

You sit up and cross your legs, it takes all of your energy and you realise that lack of sleep is really catching up on you. "I just don't have an appetite. I'll be okay once I've gotten some sleep."

"Something's on your mind." It's a statement, which strikes you as odd. No one has ever really noticed when you've been upset in previous homes and you wonder how Lena and Stef seem to do it so well. You could stub your toe up the stairs and they would ask you if you're okay from down the stairs. It's fascinating, but it's also terrifying. You're a closed book and you always have been. You're Callie the wall builder, Callie the isolator. The idea of someone tearing open the book and reading all your words absolutely terrifies you because you never want anyone to see what's inside. There are big long words and there's awful storylines and you'd rather keep them locked inside rather than have them seep out of the pages and infect the air.

"Uh…yeah, um, bad maths test."

"Hey," she takes your hand and you don't like how she does it so often without your permission. You wish that she could walk away and leave you to think alone. "We're right here, love. We're right here and we trust you and we need you to be honest with us. Talk to us. Bottling things up is bad, hon."

"no offence," you whisper tiredly, "but I'm getting pretty tired of all of this 'were here for you' talk. You and Lena are great, but you have to stop treating me like your child. You have to stop asking me if I'm okay and if I need anything because, pretty soon, I'll have to fend for myself again and I don't want to lose anything."

"lose anything?"

You shake your head in defeat, wondering how she doesn't understand what you mean and you stand up from the bed.

"I don't want to lose a good home, and a good family. I would rather be alone while I'm here because as soon as I let you in, I'll be alone somewhere else."

When you enter the bathroom, you lock the door and stand in front of the large mirror on the wall. You don't observe yourself much, because there's never really a time that you like what you see. There are bags under your eyes and you notice that your skin is paler than it has been in a while. You see yourself like an x-ray machine; every single piece of you, all the bad wrapping over your bones, all of the pain coursing through your veins. You sometimes wish that you could stop. You wish it could all end. But then you remember Jude and his innocence and his dependence on having you around and you know that leaving this world isn't an option for you because, even though you don't need anyone else, there is one person in this world that needs you.

You've thought about cutting. People say that it sort of helps when you're filled with poison. You wonder what it would feel like to let some of the darkness inside you get out. But you are scared of blood.

"_You're not disposable, Callie. You're not worthless." _

Stef's words creep into your mind and you laugh bitterly because you _are _disposable_. _You _are _worthless. You are a burden. You are a pain. You are bad. You are wrong. You are ugly. People say that it doesn't matter what's on the outside, it's what's on the inside that counts.

You wonder what Stef and Lena would think of you if they could see the Callie that you see every day in the mirror.

You turn on the tap when you feel tears well up in your eyes. It's one thing for them to sense that something is wrong, but it's another thing entirely for them to _know. _

Tears turn into a soft cry, which turns into sobs, which turns into hyperventilating, and before you know it, you are on the floor having a full blown panic attack. You try and even out your breathing, but for some reason it just doesn't work. You hear blood coursing through your veins and rushing past your ears, you see black dots in your line of vision, you feel like throwing up.

Someone is knocking at the door and you aren't sure whether or not you should unlock it because you are scared they might worry, or shout, or laugh. You're ashamed for letting this happen since it hasn't happened in months.

_Keep it together, Callie. Breathe, come on, you can do it. _

Self-motivation doesn't work, and you reach up and unlock the door, terrified that you are about to pass out.

Through the fuzziness in your vision, you see Stef and Lena both enter the room and the door closes behind them. At least no one else has to see.

Lena is directly in front of your face and somehow her soft voice cuts through the loud rushing sound. It makes the black spots disappear. There's a cold wetness on your neck and you realise Stef must be putting a cold wet towel back there in an effort to bring you back to reality.

Warm brown eyes are willing you to breathe and somehow everything begins to slow down.

"That's great, Callie. In through the nose and out through the mouth. Slow and steady."

And just like that, you can breathe.


	3. Watch over

**A/N: Wow! Thanks so much for the kind reviews. To the person who asked that I stop writing in this POV, I'm not sure that I can just change the way I write now that I'm in to it and, honestly, it's the only way I really enjoy writing. If I were to change it, I don't think I'd be able to actually get into the story myself. So, I hope it becomes less confusing for you. **

**I will be including different people's points of view later in the story, but for now we're really only focusing on Callie. I hope you are all having a good day (: **

**Thanks again! **

You used to dream about your mom. She would be standing over you with a smile on her face and she would reach down and push hair out of your face and tell you how beautiful you were. You would wake up with the start of a smile on your face and then you would remember, quite suddenly, that she was gone. When the dreams stopped, you wondered if you would forget her face. You wondered if you would forget her smile, or what her hand felt like on your face but somehow the memories seemed to stick with you.

It's been three years since those dreams stopped and you seem to have forgotten what colour her hair was. Part of you remembers it being blonde, but you wonder if maybe it was actually brown. It doesn't matter how hard you try to think, or how many times you close your eyes, you just can't picture it. It terrifies you to think that she might be fading from your memory and you don't have any pictures because you lost a lot of your belongings in one of your first foster homes.

"Callie?"

You take your eyes away from the window and see Jude standing behind you with a worried look on his face. You smile right away, because you never like to worry him.

"What's up, bud?"

Jude sits down on your bed and he shrugs his shoulders. "I was thinking about Mom."

_Of course _you think _of course he is. _

You can't believe it's been 10 years since you last saw her. You can't believe you managed to survive 10 whole years without her next to you. This day, 10 years ago, you became a foster kid. Part of the system that would continue to let you down over and over and over again. This day, 10 years ago, you lost the only person who ever actually made you feel at home.

When your mom died and your dad went to Jail, you heard someone saying how it was for the best that you and Jude didn't have to be treated bad any more. You were young, but the words stuck with you, because you didn't understand why anyone would think that your mom leaving was for the best. They said that she was a bad mom because she never left _him _and you know that they were wrong. Your mom loved you, she loved Jude. Sure, some of the things she did were selfish, but she never treated either of you with anything but love. Deep down, you understand why she stayed with him despite his verbally and, sometimes physically, abusive nature. She was scared of him, she was scared of what would happen if she wasn't part of him anymore. She never intended to hurt anyone and it hurts you to think that, because of that, she died.

"I do, too, bud." You wrap your arms around Jude and you are grateful for the comfort that it gives you. You always feel sad on the anniversaries, but you never tell Jude just how much it hurts you.

"Do you remember her?" His voice is barely a whisper when he asks you and it takes you by surprise because you have spent the entire day asking yourself the exact same question. Do you remember her? Or do you remember an idea of what she was like?

"She was great." You think about it for a while, how you are going to describe her to him. How do you explain the way her voice sounded? Do you even remember? How do you explain all the reasons she loved you both? How do you describe all the reasons that you love her?

"She used to take us out in the car," You remember those days clearly even though you were so small. How she used to grab your hand and give you a huge smile and wrap you and Jude up warm with scarves and hats and she would lead you out to the car with Jude in her arms and push you both inside and chirp that you were going for ice cream even though it was dark outside and freezing cold. "When dad was…sick…she would bundle us up in all these clothes during the winter and we'd get in the car and drive. I loved it, because no one else I knew got to go out in the car at night time just to drive. We would drive and drive and drive for…I don't know…it felt like hours…and we would get ice cream. You would be crying at first, but then you would just go quiet and watch me and mom laughing in the front of the car and we knew it meant that you were happy."

"Howcome you never told me that?"

You wonder why you haven't. Maybe because you are a little selfish, because it's your memory and you have always liked holding it inside of you. You always like the way it makes your head feel when you think about it. But you know that Jude was there, too. It wouldn't have been the same if he hadn't been, and you wonder why you never said it before because it's always been you and Jude. Even then, when it was the three of you, you would sneak over to his cot in the middle of the night and stare at him because he was so sweet and he never had to really see it when your dad was shouting at your mom. You loved to sing him to sleep when your mom was too tired to do it. You wonder if your mom knew that, one day, it might not be the three of you any more. Maybe that's why you would sometimes find her standing at the door way watching you sing with silent tears in her eyes.

"I don't know…you never really ask about her. She loved us a lot."

Jude thinks for a moment and he nods his head. "Do you think that she watches over us? I mean…if she does…do you think she'll be sad when we get adopted by someone?"

You smile and ruffle his hair. You used to wonder the same thing yourself, but years of hurt made you realise that she was completely gone. If your mom was there, if she was really watching you, she would have saved you a long time ago because no one would let their child become what you have. Would she still love you if she saw you now?

"I think that she's inside of us; part of us. I think that, all those times when you have been weak but something has pushed you to keep going…that's her. Or when you feel like crying, but something makes you laugh? I think that is her. I don't think she's watching over us, because I think that she is the parts of us that feel good. We will always have her there. She will always push us towards what's right…like family and home."

"I think that she led us to Stef and Lena." He looks at you and he smiles widely "I know you don't want to love them, because I know this isn't for good. But I think that we're here for a reason. I think that we're here to heal so that we can move on to another home that will keep us for good. I think that she led us here so that we could be okay for a while."

You wish that you could feel the same way as Jude does. You can see it in him every time he looks at them, that he loves them and that he needs them. But you feel a little more estranged about it all, or at least part of you pushes away your ability to feel the same way. You _want _to need them, but you _can't. _

"Yeah," you say. "Yeah, I think you're right."


	4. 10 years

It is tradition on the anniversary of your Mothers death to spend the day with Jude, no matter what your living situation is. After you talk with him, you let Stef and Lena know that you are taking him out somewhere and you have your phone on you and you both head out around lunch time.

There is $37 in your savings jar and you pull out every penny of it, intending to give Jude a day he will enjoy. You catch a bus and head into the nearest town and look for somewhere to eat. Jude tells you he wants a burger and so you both end up in an In-n-out, sharing fries and eating your own burgers.

"Could we visit her?"

10 years down the line and you still find it hard to go near the grave. Maybe it's because you don't like that it's supposed to offer you closure. You were never given the opportunity to say goodbye to your mom and the last thing that you ever said to her wasn't exactly warm and loving. You often ask yourself if your mother dying was the reason that you ended up so cold later in life, but lately you've been wondering whether or not you've always been this way.

You don't exactly blame what happened to her on yourself because, really, it was his fault and the police reports have proven that, his absence has proven that. Still, it hurts when you think about the facts. If you hadn't been having an argument with her that night, there's a large chance that she would never have gone out for ice cream and left you with the sitter. If you had never shouted at her, she probably never would have asked him to take her to dairy queen.

To this day, you still find it hard to enjoy the stuff. You tell people that it's too cold, it makes you sick. You never tell anyone that a part of you finds it hard to hear the word ice cream without flashing back to the night that she went out for some and never brought any home.

"I don't think we can this year, bud, I don't know which busses will take us there."

Jude slumps forward in his chair and shrugs his shoulders tiredly. "It's Saturday, Cal, Lena isn't working."

"So?"

"Well," He gives you his best 'puppy dog' look and slurps up the last of his drink before continuing his thought, "You know that she'd be happy to take us if we ask."

How could you say no? All he wants to do is lay some flowers and say some words and you know that he is right. Lena would be more than willing to take you there.

You sigh and cover up your half-eaten burger, unwilling to finish it. "Sure, I'll ask."

Lena answers the phone fairly quickly and you always find it surprising how these women are so ready for anything that happens with their kids at all times.

"Callie?"

"H-hey, uh…" You know that she is probably currently cooking lunch for everyone else and you don't want to worry her, you should get the words out quicker, but you _really _don't want her to say yes. "Are you busy just now?"

"Not really, what's up?"

"Well…" You are sitting outside In-n-out alone waiting on Jude to go to the bathroom and you take the opportunity to ask about visiting the cemetery "Jude was wondering if maybe, um, maybe you could possibly take us to my moms grave later? It's okay if you don't have the time or whatever; I just thought I'd ask…"

The line goes silent for a moment and you think that she is probably going to say that there's too much going on in the house today for a trip in the car, but then you hear her ask Brandon and the twins if they're okay alone. You want her to say no. Please say no. "Of course, hon. Where are you guys now? I could pick you up and head straight from there."

"We're at the mall, We could wait outside for you."

"Okay, that's fine. I should be there in about twenty minutes." She stops talking for a moment and you wait for the line to go dead, but then she takes a deep breath. "Callie?"

"Yeah?"

"I heard you and Jude talking this morning. Why didn't you tell me about today?"

There are many reasons that you don't tell people when it's the anniversary. The words feel like blisters on your tongue, even years down the line. Saying the words 'my mom died' fills you with a horrible feeling of loss and you think it's strange that so many people say that you eventually move on because its been 3652 days and you still feel it so hard in your heart that it's often hard to take a deep breath.

"I don't know, I just don't like to bother people."

"You can never bother us."

* * *

><p>The cemetery is quiet.<p>

Jude had picked up some flowers before Lena picked you up and he strides right over to the grave and places them down on the ground. When you were younger, he asked what her favourite flowers were and you told him orchids. She had never told you this fact, but you always remember the tattoo on her wrist of an orchid and you just assumed that they meant something to her.

The air is dense and you stand behind Jude as he kneels down on the ground. There are no flowers left from previous visits and you wonder if the wind maybe swept away the orchids he had left the last time you visited, two years ago.

"Hey mom," he mumbles, tracing his hand along her name on the stone as if to feel some comfort. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I hope you can. Things are good here, I'm in a new school and we're being fostered by a really good Family."

Lena is standing a few feet behind you, smiling.

"I have a new friend and he's really great."

You feel sick.

"I hope that you are okay, wherever you are. I don't really remember you that much, but Callie tells me about you sometimes when I can't sleep. Like, how we used to go out for ice cream. She told me that you would sing me to sleep and read me stories and I like to picture that when I'm feeling sad. I love you, Mom. I miss you."

The loss doesn't affect Jude as much as it does you. He doesn't cry about her often and you are happy to know that he's been able to live his life happily with just words about the type of person she was. You wish that you could give him your memories so that he could understand more of what she is like because you think it must be hard to not remember.

"Callie takes good care of me, Mom. You would be proud."

You almost laugh because you know that she would feel anything but proud of who you are. Proud of what? Proud of the way you ended up in Juvie? Proud of the way you left Jude alone with that man? Proud of the way you look at yourself in the mirror? Proud of the anger that burns inside of you every day?

If you ever have a daughter and she turns out like you, would you be able to love her?

A hand on your shoulder takes you away from your thoughts and you turn around to see Lena giving you a soft 'im sorry' look.

"Aren't you going to say something?"

What would you say?

You think about that with every passing day that you don't talk to her. There's not much point, because she isn't listening to you. What would you say to her that would make her understand the things you've done? If she was really listening _could _you say something?

Probably something along the lines of _Dear mom, sorry for being such a colossal disappointment, hope you are happy out there. _

"I'm okay."

What you are right now is the complete opposite of _okay. _10 years. 10 years without her. 10 years alone. 10 years an orphan. 10 years taking care of Jude. 10 years without her arms. 10 years without her laugh. 10 years without her smile. 10 years without a mom.

You can feel yourself welling up and you want Jude to hurry up. You never wanted to come here in the first place and you definitely don't want to be here right now. You want to run, fast. You want to feel your lungs burn and your legs hurt, because it's better than this feeling of loss in the pit of your stomach. You want to be anywhere but here.

When Jude is finished talking and Lena suggests heading back to the car, you can't seem to take your eyes from the spot of the stone. Your feet feel routed to the ground. Considering the fact that two seconds earlier you want to run, you feel like you need to stay.

"You guys go ahead," you mumble. "I'll be right there."

Once you are sure that they have walked out of earshot, you kneel down at the grave and your fingers whisper over your mothers name engraved in the stone. You sigh. Ten years ago, when you reached out, you could trace her face with your fingers and now all you get is cold marble.

"I'm sorry I'm not the girl you wanted me to be. I'm sorry that I couldn't protect him better. I'm…" You take a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry that you can't be here."

Rain starts to fall from the sky and you look up and close your eyes as the drops bounce off your face.

_You're four years old and you are looking out of the window and the rain bouncing off the ground. Your mom is in the kitchen baking cookies to eat after dinner and she told you that, if you are good, you might even get one before. She told you two weeks ago that there's another baby in her belly and you can't wait to find out if you are going to have a brother or a sister. You don't really mind either way. _

_You run into the kitchen and you bounce up and down. 'mamma mamma it's raining outside!' _

_She turns around to face you and you giggle because there is flour on her chin. 'silly mamma you got it on your face!' _

_You bounce over to her side and pull on her apron, 'mama lets go outside! Puddles!' _

_She laughs, that really happy and loud laugh, and she takes your hand and walks with you to the door where you both slide into your rain boots and jackets. _

_She bends down to your level and buttons up your coat 'let's go splash, baby.' _

_And you do. It feels like hours you are out there, jumping up and down, feeling the rain splash on your face. You both laugh and laugh and laugh and the rain doesn't stop for days. _

_It's the best feeling in the world. _

You feel tears mixing in with the rain drops on your face and you wipe them away with the palms of your hands. You feel four again and you want her to come and pick you up and make it all stop, just for a while.

It makes you angry that she can't.

"Why did you have to leave?" You ask, voice whimpering like a little kid. "I know you didn't mean it but…how was I supposed to do this alone? How am I supposed to keep doing it alone?"

Your lips are trembling and rage is filling up all the empty spaces in your body. You aren't angry with her, but you are angry with everyone else.

"I can't keep doing this. I can't keep being _strong. _I'm not…God, why did you let him do this to you? We would have been so happy, just the three of us. I didn't need a dad…I just needed you and Jude. How am I supposed to be happy mom? How am I supposed to keep living like this?"

You find yourself bent double with your face in your hands and you are sobbing now. Why now? You have never cried about her like this before. Why ten years down the line are you so angry about this?

You've always been angry, you realise, but you've never had the opportunity to express it.

Maybe it's the fact that you've been shown how life _can _be. Maybe seeing this family work so well together makes you miss her more because, if you had all just left, maybe now you'd have the same sort of life. Could she ever have left him?

You are soaked through, and your hair is completely drenched. You are shaking from the cold and your heart feels like it's about to burst open, but you can't find the strength to get up and walk to the car.

"I love you, mom."

You are about to attempt to stand up when you feel something being placed over your shoulders and you look up to see Lena wrapping you in a warm coat. She kneels down beside you and pulls you into her arms. You consider pulling away, but you enjoy the comfort.

"Let's go home and get you dried up, huh?"

**A/N: I'm really grateful for the response I'm getting from this story. It's not going to be an easy ride, I really want to explore how Callie will cope with going from being a troubled girl who can't trust, to someone who can accept herself and, hopefully, the people who want to love her. **


	5. No light, No light

**A/N: I just want to clarify this before we go any deeper into the story: This isn't a story centred in callie's mum dying, but I didn't just want to write one chapter on the anniversary and leave it at that. I want her to actually **_**deal **_**with her feelings. This chapter get's pretty emotional, but It's necessary for callies development. Still got a lot of rubbish to go through after it, though. Thanks for reading! Also, to the person who suggested more scenes between lena/stef and callie, don't you worry, that's coming up soon! **

The drive home from the cemetery is quiet and sad. It takes about an hour to get there and, twenty minutes into the journey, you listen to Lena and Jude have a conversation about your mom.

Jude tells her about how she was the best mom in the world. He tells her that she took us on all these trips. We went to deep sea world and to the beach and the cinema. Jude tells her that he doesn't really know her, but he loves her anyway. She tells him about her Grandma, who died when she was younger, and how she was her favourite person when she was little. She tells him that she misses her, but it helps to know that she's watching over her.

You plug in your earphones and stare out the window at the passing houses.

How many of these houses hold alcoholics? How many people in these houses have lost parents? How many of the kids are scared? How many of them know what its like to be tossed out time and time again?

You close your eyes and listen to the music.

"_Somedays aren't yours at all, they come and go as if they're someone else's days. They come and leave you behind someone else's face and it's harsher than yours and colder than yours." _

How many people feel this way? You've always wanted to ask. How many people feel like they are their own shadow? How many people wander the earth instead of living on the earth?

It's all pretty silly, really. You know that you should be happy because you've never been safer. You know you should pick up your head and stop questioning the world, because the world is handing you something good for once. At the end of the day, when you sit down and consider all of these feelings, you will realise that it doesn't really matter.

You are living on a planet that is rotating in a galaxy that is floating in a universe that expands infinitely. At night, when the stars are at their strongest and the sky is at its darkest, you look up. Just like you used to do when you and Jude were younger, and you think about how small you are. Every single human is born to die, part of an existence that barely begins to exist before turning to dust. You look at the stars and you are fascinated by the fact that the stars are already gone and, yet, they still shine bright enough for you to see. You think about how those stars are like the people who make a difference in the world. Like the soldiers that you sing for, the singers that you listen to, the fighters that gave people rights. The people who do things, who are _great _will live on, will become legacies. You've known since the moment Jude was born that he was going to be one of those bright exploding stars that you see, even on the foggiest of nights. You've always known that he would make a difference. Every word he speaks fills the air with hope and everything he does is like a star exploding in the sky and causing a chain reaction of a million other stars. He'll be the person who shines on for an eternity, because he got that side of your mom.

He knows more than you do, even at a young age. He asks questions about everything he see's and he smiles, even at the people who have hurt him, because he thinks that that is the way to change the world. Maybe he's right, though, maybe one of his smiles one day will be in the background of someone's picture and they will wonder who he is, why he is smiling, what he's like. Maybe one of his questions will change the way people see life. Maybe he will ask you something one day that will change the way _you _see life.

You are a star that stopped shining a long time ago. Jude and the Fosters are the stars that shine for an eternity.

"Callie?"

You realise that you must have fallen asleep along the way because you open your eyes and you are back at the house. You groan and unbuckle your seatbelt with a shaky hand before getting out of the car and heading into the house ahead of Lena and Jude. You feel strange and shaky, like you've eaten too much sugar and your body can't handle it, and all you want to do is fall into bed and sleep for the rest of the night.

After saying hi to Stef in the hallway, you trudge up the stairs and change into some sweatpants and a baggy T-shirt that was in the bottom of your bag. You hesitate before getting on the bed, wondering if maybe going to sleep will get you into trouble. But you are too emotionally drained to really care.

"Mind if I come in?"

Stef is hovering at the door and you shrug your shoulders, keeping your attention focused out of the window opposite the bed. She sits down next to you and picks her legs up and crosses them. "It's okay," she says "If you are mad at her."

You look at her.

"I mean…even 10 years down the line. Grief can hit you hard sometimes when you least expect it."

"I'm not." You lie.

"Lena heard you today."

You shouldn't be mad. It's not _okay. _What happened didn't happen _because _of your mom. It happened _to _your mom.

A silence stills the room and you stare at Stefs hands covering yours. They're soft, but they are tired and worn and you wonder how she manages to keep going with three kids in the house and the world telling her that who she is isn't okay. You look at her sometimes and her eyes tell you that she's carried the world on her back and still managed to keep going. It must be hard, you think, to have lied to yourself about who you are your entire life just because you fear that no one will accept you. Is it any different than what you do day to day?

"I'm tired. Can I sleep?"

Stef smiles at you and grips your hands firmly. "After dinner."

"I'm not hungry."

"Well, that's too bad 'cause you have to eat."

* * *

><p>A while later, in the kitchen, you take a seat and you look at the plate full of food in front of you. The food doesn't look appetising and you find yourself pushing it around on the plate, completely lost in your mind.<p>

You hear them talk about school and grades and Jude is laughing at something Jesus is saying. Lena is talking about plans for the wedding and Stef is talking about how boring it is being off of work. Everyone talks in a sort of harmony, it fits together without a single note missing or misplaced. They all understand each other, they all listen to each other.

You don't speak at all.

Why should you? What interesting thing could you add to the dinner table? You don't care about school. You hate the weather. The wedding is making your stomach hurt because it's just another thing you have to watch happen that you're not really part of.

You push back from the table and, without a single word; you walk out of the house and sit down on the stairs on the porch.

The air is still and silent and you close your eyes and take a deep breath. Sun is setting over the houses and everyone is sitting comfortably in their houses eating dinner and talking about their lives. Here, you are supposed to feel safe. Here, you are supposed to feel comfort. Yet, for some reason, it is here that you begin to really resent everything about yourself. What is it, you think, that makes you feel this way? Because they're offering you life on a silver platter. They're offering you everything you've ever dreamt about and Jude is taking everything in so easily but you just can't seem to understand why they try so hard. You don't understand why they waste their time. Why not adopt Jude and leave you? They don't have the room for two, but you know they'd have room for him. You see it in the way they say goodnight to him, the way they hug him, the way they talk to him. They want him to be a Foster; he is already becoming a Foster. Maybe, if you were to leave, it wouldn't be so hard for them to sign some papers.

The first time you were fostered, when you were around seven, you thought that you were getting a home for life. They never really fully explained the situation to you and you packed up everything you and Jude owned and waited at the top of the stairs in the home for the family to pick you up with a huge grin on your face. Jude was sitting on your knee and resting his head on your chest when the family walked through the door and you almost dropped him jumping up to grab your things.

That night, when you were in bed wide awake, you heard the Parents who took you in talking in the hallway and you tiptoed to the door and listened to them.

_Robert, we can't keep taking kids in. _

_It's only for a while, babe. _

_What made you say yes? _

_Honey, we get more child support this way. Think of it…we can go on holiday if we save some of it up. _

_Those kids are really troubled, Rob. I don't think we can give them a good home. _

_They don't need a _good _home, they just need food and a roof over their head. At least for a few months, come on. _

That conversation was a life changer. You had crawled back to bed and cried for the rest of the night because it was the moment you realised what the rest of your life was going to be like. At seven years old, you had already been made to feel worthless.

* * *

><p>The door behind you opens and shuts and someone is sitting next to you. You expect it to be Lena or Stef, but when Mariana starts talking, you are surprised.<p>

"Is the conversation boring you?" She looks at you and gives you a sad, genuine, smile. You give her a weak laugh.

"You seem sad."

You smile and shrug your shoulders. The thing about Mariana is that she has done nothing but surprise you from the moment you entered the house. When you first met her and she gave you that look of _you'll be gone in a day _you had naturally assumed that she was going to be the number one enemy in this house. She had seemed selfish, she had seemed overly dramatic. Yet, time and time again she has proved herself to be the opposite of your first thoughts on her. She has shown you compassion when you needed it most and walked away when she understood your need to be alone. On a night like this, when you are feeling strangely vulnerable, you are happy that it is her who has come to speak.

"Can I ask you something?" She asks and she shuffles herself over so that she is leaning against a wooden post. You nod.

"Do you like it here?"

It strikes you as odd that she asks you this question, because you've told her before that you do. It's not a lie, because it isn't unpleasant being here. It's just difficult.

"Sure."

She looks at you for a moment and her expression goes from one of question, to one of empathy.

"When I came here I didn't." she says.

"Howcome?"

She shrugs and you watch her have an eternal conversation with herself. "It's hard to become part of a family, you know? Especially when you've been a foster kid for so long."

Sometimes, you forget that Mariana and Jesus ever had to go through the same as you and Jude. In fact, it only really became clear that she hadn't always been a part of this family when Stef had been injured. You had defended her back then, because you realised that she got what it was like to be tossed around.

"I know that you're worried, Callie. You don't want to be part of something that isn't permanent but…the thing that you don't realise…it _is _permanent."

You sigh. "And how is that?"

"Because even if you don't get adopted by my moms, you've already become part of the family. It doesn't matter if someone else takes you in next week, they'll always be just around the corner. That's what's so amazing about them…you know? Even when we've really messed up, when we've really upset them, they're always there. My moms love you and Jude and they'll always treat you like their kids. Don't forget that."

She smiles at you and goes back into the house, leaving you alone to process what she has just told you.

You self destruct. That's what you do. You either sabotage yourself, or you run away. You do it all the time. Every time something get's a little complicated, you get really angry at yourself for letting yourself hurt, and you press a button in your mind that reads _explode. _You did it even when you were a little girl and you had your mom. You did it when you were in a foster home and you punched the mirror in the bathroom after you heard your foster mom say that you were _unfixable. _You've done it your entire life and you are doing it again, but this time it's different.

Before, it was about getting away from bad situations. Before, it was because the world was treating you wrong. Right now, you are on a path of self destruct for reasons you don't quite understand.

Because they love you. They _love _you. You.

They still loved you when you called them names. They still loved you when you nearly got their son hurt. They still love you every time you push them away. They still loved you when you told them about Liam. They still love you, even though you've given them every single chance not to.

And you just don't understand _why._

* * *

><p>You're not in running clothes, but you run anyway. You run past the houses and past the families. You run through trees and across fields of muddy grass. You run and you run and you run until your lungs burn and your whole body is sore. You aren't wearing sneakers and you don't have your cell phone with you, you don't have <em>anything <em>with you. You just run.

It's dark. You end up at the top of a hill, somewhere unfamiliar, and you sit down on the grass and think about the day that your mom died.

_He's mad again. _

_He doesn't say so, but you hear it in his voice. _

_He came home late last night and you heard him knocking things over in the kitchen and arguing with your mom and it made you sad because she was crying. _

_Mom is in the kitchen making dinner and you wander in, dragging your stuffed doggie with a leash behind you. You sit down on a chair and you watch her kneading the dough. _

_You love watching her cook. _

'_When's dinner going to be ready?' you ask. _

_She does not reply. She continues to knead, her hands pushing down on the dough, her mind somewhere far away. You do not like it when mommy is like this. _

'_Francis called.' You look up and he is walking into the room. He is wearing a dark pair of worn down jeans and a T-shirt with paint stains on it. He has stubble on his face and you don't like it when he lets it get that way. It makes him look scary. 'said that they thought we should go over for dinner. I told her no.' _

_She doesn't answer him either. _

'_You wanna answer me or are you just gonna stand there like an idiot?' _

'_earth to-' _

_You stand up to leave, because you don't like it when he talks to her that way. You hear him slam his fist down on the table and you watch your mothers' shoulders slump forward. _

'_I'm sick of this. You act like you don't have a good life but I work damn hard while you stay here and raise them and eat the food that _I _pay for. You are so fucking selfish, you know that? Did you hear me?' _

'_stop it,' you whisper. 'Please, daddy, stop shouting at mom.' _

_She turns around, tears in her eyes, and bends down to your level. 'Go see your brother, baby.' _

'_I don't wanna leave you, mommy.' _

_She sighs and runs her hands through your hair. 'Please.' _

You are on your knees, gasping for air.

_It's a couple of hours before she comes up to your room and you are sitting on the end of your bed, petting your stuffed dog and crying. _

'_Callie, dinner is ready.' _

_You look up at her and she looks so tired, you have never seen her this sad. 'Can we go away?' you ask. _

'_what?' _

'_I don't want to live here anymore, mommy. Not with him. Mommy, let's go away…please.'_

_She shakes her head and stands up. 'Callie, you're a little girl, you don't understand.' _

_But you do. You understand that your daddy hurts your mommy. You understand that it isn't fair that she's scared all the time. You understand that you shouldn't have to be the one to sing Jude to sleep at night. _

'_I don't wanna live here anymore!' _

'_Well, you have to!' _

_You stop and take a step back. Your mom has never shouted at you before, not ever. _

_You don't understand. You just want her to be happy. Why can't she be happy? _

'_I don't want him to be my daddy!' _

_She slams her hands on your desk and you start to cry. 'That's __**enough **__Callie!' _

_You start to walk out of the room and you hear her softly crying. You want to make her feel better, but you are so mad. You want it to be just you and Jude and mommy. All he does is make her sad, all of the time. She doesn't jump in puddles with you anymore, she doesn't laugh at the TV anymore. _

_You turn around and, with all of the anger you can find, you whisper 'I hate this. I hate you'. _

You don't understand why you said it. You wanted to hurt her because why? You thought maybe it would make her leave him? You thought it would make her love you more? You thought maybe it would help?

You were only _six. _You shouldn't be mad at a little girl who was only trying to make things better. You were a child and you understood more than what she did. You were only _six _and you hate that you let her walk away.

It wasn't your fault. It _wasn't. _

But why did _that _have to be the last thing you said to her?

Did she think about it when she was dying? Did she feel bad for hurting you? You hope that she didn't. You hope that she knew how much you loved her. You loved her more than you have ever loved anyone since. More than anything in the entire world. It feels as though she took that love with her and left you with this big, empty, gaping hole.

You curl up in a ball and you sob.

Although, it's not really just sobbing, it's so much more than that. Like a vicious monster crawling out of your rib cage and breaking you open, erupting from your body, squeezing at your lungs.

Will you ever be able to love again?

That seems to be your last thought as the world drifts into darkness.


	6. Hardest of Hearts

**A/N: big thanks for the reviews! A little bit of a trigger warning, there will be a little bit of talk of thoughts of death later on in the chapter. I also just want to say that I started a new semester in university yesterday which means that it might be a little bit longer between updates but I will try my hardest not to take too long. **

_Her hair is brown. _

_She's standing at the foot of your bed with a soft smile on her face and her skin is glowing like the sun. _

_She doesn't look sad anymore, not like when you last saw her. She looks at peace. _

'_Mom?' _

_It feels like it's been an eternity since you last saw her eyes. They're brown like yours, wide like yours. She nods. 'It's me, Callie.' _

_You sit up and look around you. You aren't in the Fosters' house, you are somewhere unfamiliar. The walls are all white, everything is white. It makes her look even brighter. _

'_Where am I?' _

_She sighs softly and looks around like she doesn't quite know herself. 'You're growing up so fast, baby.' _

_There is a blissful silence in the room for a while and you breathe in the serenity of it all. Her pale skin and her soft hands, her brown eyes and her dark hair, you remember It all. It feels good. _

'_What's happening?' _

'_You don't know?' _

_You shake your head. 'No.' _

'_Callie, baby, I need you to let them in.' _

_You know who she is talking about. 'I can't. They won't like what they see.' _

'_how could anyone not like what they see, baby? You're wonderful.' _

_You sigh. 'I'm not.' _

'_What happened to you, Cal? You used to be such a happy girl.' _

_You stand up from the bed and walk towards her, you want to wrap your hands around her. You want to feel what you used to feel again. You want your mom. _

'_You can't touch me, honey.' _

'_Why?' you ask. _

'_You have to go back to them.' _

_You reach her and you are only inches apart. You could reach out if you wanted to, you could wrap your hands around her wrist. You could take her into your arms. You could touch her. It's been so long. _

'_I forget what you smell like.' You say. _

_She smiles softly and shakes her head. 'That's okay, baby, There's other people now. There's so much more for you.' _

'_I don't deserve it.' _

'_Callie, let them love you.' _

_You sit down on the end of the bed and bring your legs up to your chest and wrap your arms around them. 'I'm not worth it.' _

'_Yes you are.' _

_She's standing across the room now and her arms are straight by her side. She looks upset. 'How can you say that, baby? How can you think so little of yourself?' _

_You sit down on the edge of the bed and fidget with your fingers. 'Because everyone else thinks that.' _

'_But Stef' She says her name you you stop dead, your heart pounding, and look at her. 'She told you that you weren't and she meant that.' _

'_So?' _

'_They love you, Cal.' _

_You shrug. 'They'll get over me.' _

'_They wont, honey, trust me.' _

_You stand up and it hits you suddenly that you are angry. Are you angry at her? Are you angry at your father? Are you angry at yourself? _

'_Everyone else does,' you are shouting, but you can't stop. 'Everyone else forgets about me. That's the way it is, don't you see that? I'm not supposed to be here for me, I'm not supposed to be loved and hugged and cared for. I'm not worth that.' _

_You stand up and pace, running your hands through your hair. 'I'm taking up space. I'm just…I'm…" _

'_Scared.' She says it softly, carefully. She speaks like she's giving you an answer, like you've been waiting for her to come to you and say it. 'You're scared that they're going to love you more than you can handle. You're scared that they're going to love you and then let you go. You're scared that they're going to split you and your brother up. You're scared Callie and, the thing is, you don't have to be. Not anymore.' _

_But you do. You always have to be scared. You have to keep your defences up high and strong and worry about what's going to happen to you and what's going to happen to Jude. You were put on this world to be strong for him, but lately you can't even do that. _

'_The thing is, mom' you whisper. 'I'm even scared of myself.' _

Just like that, you are staring up at the stars, shivering. You want to close your eyes and see her again, you want to say sorry and say you love her and say you're not mad, but you know that it won't happen.

You think that you'd better stand up and walk back to the Fosters, but your body doesn't want to co-operate. You're too tired. When was the last time you slept? The last time you ate?

You know that you'll get sick laying out here in the cold like this, but you can't get up. Not quite yet. Not for a while.

Maybe you could sleep for a while; maybe someone will find you and carry you home. Maybe no one will find you. Would that be so bad?

You think of death and it's like a door at the end of a corridor. It's like a person you hate, but are deeply intrigued by. It's like a bad painting that you can't quite stop looking at. It's like a big, long sleep and you are exhausted but you can't quite get to it.

Life is like a movie that you hate, but can't quite stop watching.

For the longest time, you've wanted to know what's coming up. Will it get any better? Is there going to be a character that comes in and saves the whole thing?

Lately, it's like you're standing up from your seat, waiting for the right moment to leave the theatre.

It's not right now, but it seems to be getting closer.

You close your eyes and somewhere in the distance you hear yelling. You hear cars on the road about half a mile down the hill. You hear a plane above your head. You feel a little colder as a breeze washes over your arms. You feel a few drops of rain fall on your face.

"Oh my god, kid, are you okay?"

You need to open your eyes and get the hell out of here, but you can't seem to wake up.

"Hey, can you hear me?"

_Wake up, Callie. Wake up, come on. _

"Hi, I need an ambulance-"

You hear nothing.

* * *

><p>There's a beeping coming from somewhere near your left ear and it's making your head hurt, You try to turn towards it but you can't quite open your eyes. It feels as though there are weights on your eyelids, and no matter how hard you try, it just doesn't work.<p>

To your right, there is someone holding onto your hands lightly, you wonder if it's her again.

You wonder if you are dead.

With every ounce of your strength, you move your thumb to let her know that you are there and you quietly whisper her name. _Mom. _

"Callie?"

The voice that responds is tired and worn down. It's not who you want it to be, though, and you feel so unbearably exhausted. You feel like, if you open your eyes, you might cry. The last time you woke up in a bed, your mother was looking back at you.

"Come on, love. Open your eyes."

It takes a moment, but you manage to pry them open a little and you get unbearable brightness in return. You swallow against the dryness in your mouth and let out a tired sigh. For a second, you stare up at the roof and try your best to avoid her stare, but you know that it won't last for long. She will want to know all the fun details of your eventful breakdown and you will give her nothing in return. That's how it works.

You turn around and she is gripping on your hand with both of her own, smiling softly.

"It's so good to see you awake."

You give her a small smile. "What happened to me?"

"Dehydration and exhaustion," she says. "You should be out of here by tomorrow morning."

You tell her that's good and you both sit in silence for a while, looking at each other and away from each other, both of you scared to speak.

"We were looking for you."

"Sorry."

"No." she speaks firmly and sits down at the end of your bed, never letting go of your hand. "You don't get to just say sorry, Callie. You left the house and walked away without telling us where you were going. Do you know how worried we were? We didn't get a call until half past three in the morning and…Callie, you don't get to just walk away."

...

'_What the hell do you think you're doing?' _

_You are ten years old and you are balancing on a stool in the kitchen, trying to reach the cupboard. Jude hasn't eaten for three days and he's starting to look sick. _

'_I…' _

'_I asked you a damn question. What. Are. You. Doing?' _

_You look from the cupboard to his angry face and back to the cupboard again. If you take food and run, Jude will be okay. You might get a beating, but at least he won't be hungry. You move quickly, throwing the door open and grabbing packets of whatever you can find and hopping off of the chair. Somehow, you manage to get past him and up to Jude's room before he can grab you and you slam the door shut behind you, looking for something to block it with. _

'_Here' you throw Jude the stuff you grabbed and watch him pry open a packet of cookies with a huge grin on his face. 'Eat up.' _

'_Get the fuck down here, right now!' _

_You stop dead and consider your options. Stay in here and risk him getting in and hurting both of you, or taking a few punches so that he doesn't have to. _

_You wander down to the living room and find him standing at the door with his arms crossed. If his wife was home, he'd be hugging you right about now. _

'_You gonna tell me what the hell that was about?' he bellows. _

'_Jude…he hasn't eaten in a while. He needed food.' _

_He laughs. 'and that gives you the right to _steal _it?' _

_He opens up the front door and shakes his head. 'Get out my house.' _

_You turn on your heels so that you can go and get Jude, but he grabs your shoulder and pushes you out roughly. _

'_NO! I need to get my brother, let me get my brother.' _

_He throws you down so hard that you are laying face first in the mud and you can already feel blood coming out of your nose. _

'_Get the fuck away from my house, go! I never want to see your face again!'_

_..._

"Why do you say that?" You ask quietly. "Why do you care if I walk away or not?"

The question must take Stef by surprise because she gives you a strange look. "Because we care about you Callie. It's not safe outside alone at night."

You close your eyes for a moment to clear your brain. There's a hundred million thoughts racing through your nerves, telling you not to trust this woman. All the bad things that people have done to you before, all the bad things you've done yourself. Why trust? Why bother?

Your stomach does summersaults. "Can I ask you a question?"

She nods. "Can you adopt Jude?"

For a moment, she looks utterly confused at your question, like you are speaking in a foreign language and then she sighs. "Why did you only say Jude?"

"Because he's the only reason I'm in your house."

It's the first time you've been truly honest since you met Stef and you wish that you could say something else. Something that will make her feel happy, but everything else you hoard inside you would only make her hate you. So you settle for something that might help Jude.

"What do you mean by that?"

You want to throw up. You are about to hurt her and you know it, but you do what needs to be done. If you push them away first then they can't be the ones to hurt you. You need to be in control. "Listen, Stef, let's not beat around the bush. You and Lena don't need another teenager around the house and I…" you swallow the lump in your throat. "I don't need people to take care of me. I've already tried that family thing and it didn't work out."

The thing about Stef is that she doesn't take shit from anybody. She speaks her mind and she lets you know when you are in the wrong. You expect her to tell you that you might be right. You expect her to get annoyed at you for being so honest with her. You expect her to walk away from you and never turn back, but then she speaks, softer than she ever has before, and it tears your heart in to pieces.

"I don't know why you do this to yourself. I wish you could see what I see."

"And what is that?"

"A beautiful young girl who has a whole life of greatness ahead of her."

There's something about you that doesn't like compliments. It's like, the second that someone speaks about you in a nice way, you want to lift your hand and slap them until their face is red. You don't really understand why that is, but it's happening right now.

"Yeah," you say "Well maybe you need to get to know me a little better."

"I'm trying!" She shouts. Loud. Angry. Tearful. "But you push everyone so damn far away; you don't let anyone get to know you because you're scared."

'_You're scared that they're going to love you more than you can handle. You're scared that they're going to love you and then let you go. You're scared that they're going to split you and your brother up. You're scared Callie and, the thing is, you don't have to be. Not anymore.'_

"Why the _hell _do people have to say that? I'm not _scared. _I stopped being scared a _long _time ago. Don't you get it? Do you not understand? I'm not worth all this hassle; I'm never going to be any good for you and Lena. I know what I am better than anyone else does and I know that, the second you learn about the parts of me you don't see, you'll be throwing me right out the door. I just want to make sure you won't be throwing Jude out with me."

"_Stop _it." There is a side of Stef you've never seen before and she is showing it to you right now. She's shouting, and standing at the end of your bed, and you are almost certain she is about to hit you. You are not scared. You're not.

You. Are. Not. Scared.

"Stop putting yourself down. Stop hurting people so that you don't need to face your problems. Stop it, Callie. You don't just hurt yourself when you do this, can you not see that? You hurt Jude, too."

"Get out."

And she does.

Just like you thought she would.

**Let me know what you think? **


	7. Never let me go

**A/N: thanks for the reviews, guys. I tried to write this chapter a little quicker but writers block caught me and I'm back at university so that's been getting in the way too. I hope you like this chapter, and please PLEASE let me know what you think. **

Surprisingly, Stef returns about half an hour later with a cup of coffee in her hand and her face tinted red as if she has been crying and, without saying a word, she sits down on a chair in the corner of the room.

For the rest of the night, she stays in that chair without saying a word to you and you drift in and out of sleep. It isn't until 9am, when you are set to be released and you are dressed and waiting to go, that she decides to speak.

"You are going to be staying off of school for the rest of the week so that you can get better. You'll also be grounded for the next two weeks with no TV, computer or phone. Any questions?"

You shake your head.

You don't quite know how to speak.

The ride home is silent and, when you get into the house, everyone has already left for school. Stef ushers you into the kitchen and makes bacon and eggs and you both sit silently with the food placed in front of you when it is ready.

You push the bacon around the plate and take a few sips of water, waiting for conversation to start. You wait for her to ask questions or be annoyed or shout at you. You _want _her to shout at you.

Nothing. Not one word.

What should you expect? You hurt her. It should be _you _that is speaking, but you can't seem to form words.

You push back from the table to go lie down and she clears her throat. "You haven't finished eating."

You ignore her and keep walking, tears are welling up and you can't be bothered crying in front of her. You just need a minute alone. Just a _minute. _

"Callie, don't walk away from me."

Her voice is drained of all emotion. Tired. _Exhausted_. Monotonous. You made her like that. This is _your _fault.

You keep walking, taking the stairs one by one, slowly.

"_Callie!" _

You step into the bathroom and close the door behind you and slide down the wall, bringing your knees up to your chest and gripping your hair in your hands. You just need to think, why can't you think?

Think think _think. _

You reach into your pocket and pull out your phone that Stef hasn't had a chance to take and you scroll down the music and press play, sitting it next to you and closing your eyes.

'_Again I let jealousy blind me today, my oldest friend and I blew her away. Just a few kind words and all I could say was I've known you what ten years, it feels like a day'_

Laura Marling is your go to music when you are feeling sad. You don't understand why that is, considering all of her music is deep and sorrowful and has the ability to hurt you even more. But she's a lyrical goddess, and she's honest about life and you wonder if it's possible to have such a deep connection with someone you've never met.

You listen to the music rise and fall, her voice low and meaningful and you let the melody wrap itself over your wounds, making them hurt more but somehow temporarily heal.

You stand up and you stand in front of the mirror and sing the lyrics along with her.

"_And, oh, watched her cry, torn apart at the hands of a child and again I used arrogance as something to depend and condemned all religion to pitiless end." _

You are crying and you don't quite understand why. Probably, maybe, because there is a woman in this house who is willing, who has made it clear that she is ready, to be there for you and help you heal and all you can do is tell her _no. _It even hurts you, because you do want her to help, you _do. _But you also know that it's impossible, absolutely impossible. You always get so far and give up and you don't know what it is that makes you do that. You let her in half way and then you push her right back out again and your heart breaks when she feels sad but you can't stop it.

"_Oh, so many died; torn apart at the hands of a child." _

You can count with one hand the nice things people have said about you since you became a foster kid.

_You're not disposable, Callie. You're not worthless. _

You would need a thousand hands to count the bad.

'_You seduced my sun, you __**slut.**__' _

'_Unfixable' _

'_Lost cause' _

'_Runt' _

'_Ugly' _

'_Hopeless' _

'_Worthless' _

'_Useless' _

_Less, Less, Less. _You're less than the person you should have been. You're less than what people wanted you to be. You continue to be less and less and _less. _

There is _one _good thing that sticks in your head. There are a million bad. How is it possible to believe in the good when the rest of the world is against you?

It's okay, anyway. You'll be out of this house in the morning judging by Stefs voice before you walked away.

Your phone beeps and you pick it up. There's a text from Lena.

_We're on your side. Don't forget that. _

_Lena x _

You sit it down with shaking hands and turn on the shower before stripping down and standing under the harsh spray. You turn the heat up until it is hot enough to burn your skin.

And you cry.

Again.

You had cried last night and you thought you had let it all out but it seems that there are always more tears in your for Lena and Stef and that isn't fair because you don't want to cry over them. You don't _want _to cry over anyone.

The song changes and you don't pay much attention but you can hear it muffled in the corner of the room, your thrown sitting under your jeans.

'_Don't cry child, you've got so much more to live for. Don't cry child, you've got something I would die for and if it comes to the rain, just be glad you'll smile again. So many don't and so many go unnamed.' _

It makes you cry more.

It makes you feel guilty.

'_oh, my mother. Oh, my friends asked the angels will I ever see heaven again?' _

You punch the wall in front of you with such force that you see blood on your knuckles and it seems to throw sense back into your system. You jump out of the shower and turn off the water and notice that there are red blotches from scrubbing all over your skin. You turn off the music and wrap yourself in a towel before sitting on the edge of the bath.

The word heaven annoys you. You aren't religious, you don't believe in an afterlife. Jude always asks you _Where do you think mom is? _And you never have an answer because you can't tell him that she's _gone. _Completely.

It feels like you left a long time ago, too.

You throw on some jeans and a shirt and clean up your hand before leaving the bathroom and wandering down to the living room, where Stef is flicking through TV channels.

You sit down next to her.

"Sorry." Is all you manage to say. She looks at you briefly and turns off the TV and her face is still stern and emotionless, but she shuffles closer to you and looks directly into your eyes.

For a moment, you think she is going to tell you it's time to pack up. You think she is going to tell you that she can't do it anymore. But then there are tears in her eyes and she frowns and wipes them away quickly and it takes you by surprise. Be stoic, Stef. _Shout at me, Stef. __**Don't be sad, Stef. **_

"I shouldn't have said that," she mumbles. "I shouldn't have said that you are hurting Jude. I shouldn't have. You do everything for that boy, Callie. I just wish that you could do more for _you. _I don't like this…I hate seeing you this withdrawn and you were doing so well before, when you told Lena and I about Liam and when you let us comfort you and I just don't understand what has changed."

What has changed? Because she's right. You were finding it so much easier to be here for a while and now it's just gone downhill and you don't really understand what makes now different than before.

"I don't know."

Stef puts her arm around your shoulder. "Do you feel sad?"

You shake your head.

"Sick?"

You sigh.

"Talk to me. _Please._"

"I'm just tired."

She pulls you into a hug and your rest your head against her chest, like you used to with your mom when you were a kid. If you weren't so defeated, you'd be walking away by now. But you need it. Even if it's just for tonight.

You fall asleep.


	8. Darkness Descends

**A/N: Thank you endlessly for the response so far. I'm sorry about the delay between updates, my laptop charger broke a few weeks ago and I have been without laptop, but I did somehow manage to write an entire chapter on paper which is something I can never be bothered doing, but the internet in our block of flats turned off for like three days so I had nothing better to do with my time. I hope this chapter makes up for the gap! I've sort of been writing scattered pieces all over the place recently and i've sat and stuck them all together, i've read it over and i'm pleased with it, but i'm worried it might seem a little bit rushed or something, so please let me know. Trigger warning for the end of the chapter, talks of not eating and thoughts relating to Eating disorders. **

**please pleas **_**please **_**review. **

It's two days after you fall asleep cradled in Stef's arms when they confront you. You're sitting out back, clutching a glass of peach tea and watching Jude and Jesus kick a ball back and forth and yell in excitement. It's good to see Jude have a brother. Lena sits down first and, shortly after, Stef follows and you are sitting in the middle of both of them, acknowledging their presence, but not saying anything. It's mid September and there is something you love about how the tree's turn orange and the sky gets darker earlier. You've always been a fall kind of girl.

Although, it's not like it is in pictures on blogs. You don't get to wrap up in a huge comfy sweater and drink tea, sitting by the window and watching the world get a little cooler. California is always sort of warm, even in the winter, and so you pretty much wear jeans or shorts and short sleeved T-shirts the entire year round. You push your foot down on a crunchy brown leave and Lena places her hand on your back.

"We're a little worried about you, Callie."

You don't look at her. Instead, you focus on the way the leaves dissipate under the force of your feet and it amazes you that you have the power to make something turn to mere dust just by brushing it with your foot without force. Sometimes, you feel like that's what you do with everything in your life. You wreck it. You make it fade away. You walk a lonely road and everything in your track perishes because you are reckless and lonely and trouble. Then people have to walk behind you and replant and clean up and rebuild and you can't really do much about it because your feet only carry you in one direction and that's forward. One road. Just one lonely, straight road.

"You're not happy, are you?"

You consider the question for a moment without responding. Not happy. They say that like you were happy before, like you know what happiness really is. It's been a long time since you experienced happiness and you have completely forgotten what it feels like inside of you.

You shrug.

"We want to help you."

You feel a hand on your arm and another around your shoulders. "Is it anything in this house? Is there anything making you uncomfortable?"

"No, of course not." You say, shaking your head forcefully. There are a lot of reasons you don't like being here, and there are a lot of things that make you feel…strange…but not uncomfortable, as such.

"Something is going on, though. I wish you could just tell us what it is."

You smile as much of a smile as you can muster and look up from the ground to Jude. "He's happy, though."

"Boys are always happy as long as they are kicking a ball." Lena jokes.

"Yeah."

For a while, there's a comfortable silence between the three of you and you watch the back and forth between Jesus and Jude. Jude kicks the ball past Jesus' feet and it hits the other end of the yard and he throws his arms in the air and yells in excitement.

"That's a score for me!"

"Yeah right, you totally cheated!"

"I'll give you it this time, but you better not cheat again!"

"I think you're just worried I'm gonna beat you!"

You smile because Jude runs like the garden is the entire world, like he's an explorer in a new place for the first time, like he's discovered diamonds in coal. He turns to you and he smiles so wide that it stuns you. He has _never _been this happy. Not ever.

"Jesus just knows you are a pro, bud!" you shout and he laughs and turns his attention back to the game.

You stare at him for a moment longer before taking your gaze away and looking at your feet again. You can feel Stef and Lena looking at you, but you avoid their stares and continue to crush leaves under your feet and listen to Jude and think about not much at all, you're just trying to be in a moment and not ruin anything for right now.

"He's never been this happy." You say it quietly because it makes you feel sort of sad. You understand why he's never been happy before being here because neither have you. You never had it easy, there was never really any reason to be this happy. But you often wish you could have given him this on your own. What have you ever given Jude, other than a little bit of safety?

It occurs to you, for the first time, that, although you might have sheltered him, you've never given him the opportunity to just be a kid. Before you were alone, you used to go on adventures with him in the back yard. You'd be pirates and kings and queens and cops and robbers and the small patch of grass behind your house was an entire galaxy of different scenarios. Then one day it just disappeared and, when you returned three years later to look at the house, the grass had turned brown with neglect.

"I wish…" the words die on your tongue as you try to say them and you let your shoulders sag forward in defeat. You've at least tried to talk today and that seems like enough. You shake your head, stand up and head into the kitchen.

You enter your room and all you want to do is collapse into bed and take a nap, but Mariana is laying in her bed reading and listening to music and you know you won't be able to sleep with the One Direction album blasting into your eardrums, so you lay back and open up the book you've been reading for a while. _The Bell Jar _By Sylvia Plath. It's one of those books you've read about nine hundred times and it's torn up and tattered and old, but you love it to pieces and it's your one thing that you've kept throughout all the homes you've been in. It's like a safety blanket.

About thirty pages in, Mariana sits down at the edge of your bed and looks at you, waiting for you to put the book down and so you do.

"Let's do each others nails."

It's not even a request, it's an order. You sigh and roll your eyes. "Why?"

Mariana smiles and crosses the room to get her box of nail polishes, when she gets back, she tips them out on the bed and looks at you kindly. "You need it."

You pick a deep purple and she opts for tiffany blue and silver glitter and you both quietly paint before you put down the polish and look at her seriously.

"Do you ever feel really trapped?"

She stops painting and puts the brush back in the pot and looks at you, confused. "What do you mean?"

"I feel like I just can't…do anything. I feel like, every time I try to move forward, something is stopping me."

Mariana crosses her legs and sighs. "I used to."

"When you came here?"

"No," She thinks for a moment and then, "I mean…I had a lot of problems here but it didn't really take that long for me to get my feet on the ground, once I let moms comfort me and talked to them. Before here though, I always thought I was going to feel like I never belonged anywhere and it scared me. Then this happened and….well, I changed."

"Jude," you say. "He's already changed. He loves it here. He loves Stef and Lena. I couldn't give him that."

Mariana smiles. "You gave him so much more."

"Like what?"

"Well," She says. "hope, for one."

"Hope?"

She nods and gives you a look that says _you don't know? _"He's so full of hope every day and he didn't get that from nowhere. I bet you told him stories."

"Every night."

"About what?" She asks.

You think for a moment and shrug. "Just heroes and stuff. Normal stuff."

"You gave him hope when you read those stories, when you told him it was going to be okay, when you protected him"

"Is hope better than happiness?"

Mariana takes your hand into hers and she nods fiercely. "Happiness is so important, callie. But giving him hope when everything really sucks? That's not something everyone can do."

Maybe you gave him all of your hope.

Is that why you have none left?

* * *

><p>You wake up at 7am because Mariana is getting ready for school and you can hearer her banging and clanking around her things trying to find something to wear for the day. You sigh and put your arm over your eyes, trying to block out the light from the opened curtains. For a while, you just lay like that and think.<p>

Since coming home from the hospital, you've done a lot of thinking. You think about how you managed to make Stef come so close to tears and how it made your chest ache dully and dread fill the pit of your stomach to see her that way because of your words. You think about how you managed to scare Jude so much that he's angry at you now, even though he says he's fine. You think about the dream you had about your mother and how real it felt, how real _she _felt and how you could almost reach out and touch her. You think about how you don't feel angry about her being gone anymore, but instead you don't really feel anything and you aren't exactly sure which is worse. Finally, you think about how safe you felt, for the first time in years, falling sleep in Stefs arms that night after the hospital.

You wonder if there's a way to make that feeling go away. You wonder how much more it will hurt when you have to leave knowing how comfortable this family are.

You don't get out of bed until 10am, and you drag yourself down to the kitchen tiredly. You've spent three days sleeping on the sofa and watching TV and not eating much at all and your body is complaining that it needs sugar, so you make a small bowl of porridge with a tea spoon full of sugar mixed through it to make it taste a little less bland and you eat it alone in front of the TV.

Stef has gone grocery shopping and everyone else is at school and it feels good to be alone for a while.

She left a note on the fridge saying she'd be home by about 2pm so you have plenty of time to do what you want. So you go for a run, even though you know you really shouldn't but you need to because it's the only time you get to really think and feel, even when the feeling you get is an ache or a pain it's good.

You only manage to run around the block two times and you go back inside because you don't want to exhaust yourself to the point of passing out again because you can't handle another few days of having all attention directed towards you. You shower and you sit outside in the yard by a tree and stare up at the sky.

...

_"That one's a fish!" _

_You're 10 and you and Jude are in the yard looking up at the clouds, pointing at the shapes excitedly. _

_"That's totally a horse, Jude! Don't be silly!" _

_Jude laughs and turns around to look at you. "Do you think his family are gonna keep us, Callie?" _

_It's the first decent family you've been part of for a while. Although, it's not really much of a family it's an old man and lady who's kids left years ago and needed to have kids around the house for company. _

_The Lady, Agnes, bakes the most delicious cookies and she comes from Scotland and her stories are always the best because she talks about people with weird names and about her time with her husband and kids. Peter, her husband, went to war when they were real young and they kept in touch through letters. She waited a long time for him to come home and, when he did, they got married and had three kids then moved to America to get a fresh start. _

_Agnes tells you that she misses Scotland because it's so much greener over there and she never thought she could live in the suburbs but she thinks it gave her kids a better chance at life. _

_Peter doesn't miss Scotland at all. He says that the only thing he preferred about Scotland was that everyone knew everyone. Agnes had a heap of friends and they always had tea and 'biscuits' (which were actually cookies) and gossiped about the new things happening in the neighbourhood. _

_One of their kids, Jane, moved back to Scotland when she turned twenty to study English Literature in a university in a strange place called Edinburgh and they don't hear much from her now because she has her own family. _

_Her other kids visit from time to time, but they live in different states. _

_"I dunno, Bud. I hope so." You say. _

_"Look!" Jude squeals. "It's a dinosaur." _

_He stands up and makes his arms short and runs around the yard yelling 'raar, raaaaaar' _

_and you both laugh. _

_You had to leave a few weeks later. _

_You never did hear any more of Agnes' stories. You never did get to eat another one of those amazing cookies. _

_..._

"I used to love staring up at the clouds."

You turn around and Stef is walking towards you. She sits next to you. "Haven't done it for years, though."

"Can't make any shapes," You say. "It's all just clouds."

"You were smiling." Stef smiles at you. "What were you thinking about?"

"I dunno…being young. Making shapes with Jude."

For a while, there's a silence between you and then you look up at Stef and sit up. "Do you think he's okay? He isn't really talking to me right now."

"He's just worried about you, honey."

You sigh and bring your knees up to your chest. "I didn't mean to scare him."

"I know."

"I didn't mean to upset you." You say.

"I know."

You stay there for a while longer and then Stef leads you to the kitchen, where she starts to prepare lunch. She makes a sandwich for both of you and places it in front of you with a glass of juice and you realise how unappealing it looks. "I'm not really all that hungry." You say.

Stef picks at her sandwich and shrugs. "That's too bad, because you have to eat. Don't want to see you fainting again, love."

You sigh and eat half the sandwich. "Can I go lie down?"

Stef nods distantly and you wander into the living room and turn on the TV. Daytime TV is the worst kind of TV, but it's the kind you can't look away from. You are watching some soap set in a hospital and some guy and girl are having an affair and people are crying and complaining and it frustrates you because there are people who actually want to watch this crap.

How can you find that entertaining? Watching people fuck up and get over it and do it again and again and again without ever really facing any real consequences. It's all just a load of pointless crap and it makes you think about how easy some people have it and how those people seem to enjoy fucking up every good thing that comes their way.

Then you feel bad because you pretty much do the exact same thing.

You turn off the TV and roll your eyes.

You start dozing off and it isn't long before you hear the door open and everyone get in from school. The sofa dips down and you open your eyes to see Jude looking at you.

"You okay, kid?"

He nods. "You?"

You smile "Yeah."

"I'm sorry," You say. "For scaring you. I won't do it again."

He nods slowly, and then hugs you and he means it when he says "It's okay. Please don't."

That night you sneak out late and run for two hours.

You feel yourself sinking and you have no idea why.

* * *

><p>You do the things that you are supposed to do.<p>

You go to school and do your homework and you come home and laugh at the jokes passing around the dinner table. You hug Lena and Stef a little more to prove to them that you are still present, even though at times you feel unbearably far away. You can't really explain it, not even to yourself. You hurt. Or, you don't hurt so much as feel numb or nauseous and it comes and goes in waves at first.

You'll feel okay for a while, and you will be able to honestly enjoy the presence of the other people in the house and then late at night, when you are laying in bed, your senses begin to fade. It's like a void, somewhere inside of you. Something missing or something that was never really there to begin with.

You can't sleep at night, but you want to sleep all day because at least then you don't actually have to pretend to laugh, or smile, or eat dinner.

Life goes on like this for 15 days and it is exhausting. You push food around on your plate and you go to bed early, where you lay staring at the ceiling for the rest of the night, until you fall asleep around 5am and you are woken at 7am for school.

You don't play guitar, or write in your journal, and you barely ever try to put effort into your homework even though you know you should because that's when people will wonder if there is something wrong.

You feel yourself losing weight and it's sort of a little victory. Because, even though you _know _you aren't a big person, you wonder what it would be like to be smaller, to shrink, to be able to hide easier or run faster. You wonder what it would be like to disappear into the background. Would anyone really notice that you are gone?

And it is one night, when you observe yourself in the mirror and you notice that your stomach is flatter, that you realise what you've been missing. Because if you are smaller, than that must mean there is less room for that darkness to hide inside of you and if you are smaller than you know it must mean that the bad stuff that tightens itself around your bones and makes it harder to move must be getting smaller, too. You've never really had a lot of control over the things that happen in your life, you've never been able to walk away from all the negativity, and here you have the opportunity to get rid of the darkness alone and that idea is absolutely thrilling. Or terrifying, you aren't exactly sure which.

So it's your little secret. You eat a rice cake in the morning before you leave for school, and you skip lunch because you know that Brandon will be practicing in the music room, Jesus will be away somewhere with Lexii and Mariana will be sitting somewhere with your friends. When you get home after school, you retreat to your room and you go down to the kitchen at dinner time and you eat as little as possible, sometimes nothing at all.

At first, you don't really bother counting calories, because it's only a temporary thing and you hear that you can get addicted to this sort of rush. You just want to take up a little less space, fit comfortably into the background, be less of a burden. So you just eat a little less than you should and you feel the pounds unwrap themselves from your bones, you feel the darkness start to fade because there is less room.

But that only lasts a while, and soon there seems to be more of it getting in to you somehow and you wonder how on earth it is possible because you seem to be doing everything right.

It's only been four weeks since you started this, since you started to shrink, and you've lost 13lbs.

You wonder how long it will take to lose another 10.

You wonder how long, roughly, it will take for the suffocating barbed wires to unwrap themselves from your bones and leave your body completely.

You wonder if anyone will notice.


	9. Birthday: Part 1

_**A/N: Thanks for all the reviews, favourites and follows up to date! It means so much to me and always fuels me to write! **_

_**This was the longest chapter ever but I thought I'd better split it into two so it'd be easier to read. **_

_**Also, I mention a song at one part and it's 'Oh so quiet' by Bjork (which was my favourite song as a child) **_

_**So here we are. **_

**Birthday: Part 1 **

_111lbs _

You don't like odd numbers. Never have. So, when you woke up and read 111 on the scale, you were less focused on the fact that you'd dropped 3lbs since the last time you'd weighed yourself and focused on the fact that you _had _to get rid of that 1 at the end. So the next goal was 110 and the one after that was 105 because multiples of 5 were the only acceptation to your hatred towards odd numbers.

Odd numbers, for some reason, when pictured in your mind, were sloppy and uneven and messy and that bothered you. Even numbers were narrow and sharp and clean and you've always wished that the odd numbers could be eliminated completely.

Ever since you were a child, you pictured things in your mind differently than you thought other people did. Metal music was dark and angry and when you saw it, it made you feel sick and uneasy. Acoustic music was light and airy like spring and you always pictured flowers and blue skies.

The word _fear _is brown like mud and cold like winter. The word brave is like the peak of a mountain that you have climbed for days. The word fat is pudgy and ugly and messy. The word thin is pristine. Clean. Powerful. Rich.

You're eating 600 calories a day at the very most.

A quarter bowl of porridge with bananas in the morning for energy to get you through the school day without food. Two dry crackers after you get home from school and, sometimes, with a teaspoon of peanut butter on the side. Dinner is a harder matter, though, and so usually you keep yourself for that meal. There are always vegetables on your plate and you separate them from the other food. If it's chicken, you'll eat half of it. If there are potatoes, you don't eat any. Carbs are the devil, you'd read that online somewhere.

Protein is _okay. _You'll eat the meat if its oven cooked, but fried is not an option. No bacon. No Chicken nuggets (the chicken in those is always fake). No bread.

Sometimes you'll eat egg whites.

The thing that amazes you is that it's not even that difficult at first, not really. Every time you feel compelled to eat something that you've restricted, you remind yourself of how wonderful it would be to be that person who has the self control to avoid it. Not many people are good at diets. You, however, will be.

Will Stef and Lena congratulate you on weightloss when they notice?

You picture it in your mind.

_Wow, look at you! Being healthy and losing weight takes so much discipline! _

_Wow, you must have a hell of a lot of self control! _

_Look at that, you're not chubby anymore! _

You smile.

But then you remember 111. Odd number. Make it even.

And so you run for an hour and skip the crackers and bananas. You wonder if you should maybe leave out the litre of water you drink during school, since maybe then you'll avoid the water weight. But you realise that it's the only thing that gets you through the day without wanting to pick at bits and pieces and so you just opt for half of a litre instead.

You wake up on your birthday and weigh in at 110 and it's a wonderful present. You hope that no one knows that you are 17 today because you've never liked birthdays, but it's highly unlikely that Jude has forgotten.

You run for two hours instead of one so that you don't need to think about birthday cake or candles or balloons, but it's really all you think about the entire morning.

When the sun starts to get higher and brighter, you sneak back into the house and shower and get dressed so that you are ready before everyone else and you eat an apple and announce that you are walking to school before anyone has time to start any conversations with you.

You're feeling especially distant today.

Before you get out of the driveway, a voice calls out to you and you turn around to see Jude running towards you. "Can I walk with you?" He asks.

"Sure, bud."

It's a nice walk to the school. Past caul de sacs and nice cars and along the front of the beach, it gives you the opportunity to just breathe for a while. It only takes about twenty five minutes and so you don't see the point in taking the car when you get to experience this instead.

"You're avoiding today, aren't you?" Jude asks you quietly, about ten minutes into the walk.

You look at him and shrug. "I don't know what you're talking about, Jude."

"Yes you do." He smiles at you and reaches into his bag, bringing out a present wrapped in blue wrapping paper and he hands it to you. "Happy birthday, Cal."

You look down at the present in your hand and tears prick the back of your eyes, but you shake your head before you can let yourself get emotional and you force a smile towards Jude. "I'll open it later, okay?"

"Open it now." He says. "Please?"

You peel back the tape and rip at the paper until you realise that you are holding an upside down frame in your hands.

"It's not much, but…"

You turn it around and stare at the picture in the frame. It's you, your mom and Jude when he was just born, maybe a week old and both you and your mom are leaning on the bed, looking up at the camera with Jude on a changing mat in front of you, screaming.

You can't help the tear that slips away and falls down your face, and you wipe it away quickly with the back of your hand.

"It's great, thank you."

School is a blur.

You can't stop thinking about the picture. About your birthday. About all the birthdays after your last one with them. You think about how you used to love it, you used to love the cake and the songs and the games and now the whole day makes you feel sick.

At lunchtime, you leave school and head to the beach to have some time alone. You know that Lena will shout at you for leaving mid-day, but you decide that being at school wont do you any good. You find a quiet spot on the sand and sit down so that you can look out at the water.

Your mind drifts as you pick up piles of sand and let it run through the gaps in your fingers.

"_Happy birthday, Callie!" _

_It's 7am when your mom wakes you up by jumping on your bed and handing you a large box wrapped in pink polka dot paper and you grin from ear to ear when you start to rip the paper open. _

_Inside is a bright pink Barbie convertible car. _

"_OH MY GOD MAMMA I WANTED THIS SO BAD!" _

_Your mom wraps her arms around you and kisses your cheeks. "That's only the start of your big day! We have pancakes and chocolate syrup downstairs for breakfast, too!" _

_You jump up and down on your bed and sing along when your mom puts on your favourite song. _

"_Shh, shh. It's oh so quiet….shh shh, it's all so still. Shh, shh, you're all alone…and so peaceful until…" _

_You jump up in the air and raise your voice, whipping your head back and forth with your mom as the music grows louder and faster. "You fall in love, zing boom, the sky up above, zing boom, is caving in, wow bam, you've never been so nuts about a guy, you wanna laugh and you wanna cry, you cross your heart and hope to die!" _

You wipe a tear away from the corner of your eye and watch the way the waves lick the shoreline and fall back again and again.

Since your mothers anniversary, you've managed to push aside the thoughts about being young. The problem is that you've never been able to not think about her on your birthday. Today, you think about the six birthday's you shared with her. You think about how she always planned out the days so specifically, how she always made your favourite food and the cake was always chocolate on chocolate on chocolate and you always ate so much that you would throw up. You think about how she always got you the presents you would stare at on TV in amazement but never asked for too often. She knew what you wanted without having to ask because she could see it in your eyes and you wonder if Stef and Lena will give Jude the same thing when his birthday rolls around.

Nostalgia can cut deeper than a knife.

"What are you doing out here?"

You look up and see Brandon hovering over you.

"Thinking."

He looks hesitant for a moment, but then takes a seat next to you.

Brandon is a nice guy, you think. You never really get the opportunity to properly talk with him, other than the odd conversation. When you had first moved in, you wondered if maybe there could potentially be something between you, but you had pushed that thought aside because the last time that happened it ended badly. Brandon had been nice enough to you, he had come with you to tell Stef and Lena about Liam and you feel as though you could never truly repay him for being so lovely to you when that happened, but ever since then things between both of you had been a little more distant because you had made it that way. It's not that you _like _Brandon, it's that you never want to give yourself the option of liking him.

"About what?" he asks, opening his bag and taking out a bottle of water. He offers you a drink and you shake your head.

"Not much."

You don't mean to be vague with people, but you know that there's a limit to how honest you can be with people. Especially when things are only temporary. If you tell him about your birthday, he'll feel bad for you and he'll tell his moms that it's your birthday and they'll make an unnecessary fuss. If you tell him about how you're thinking about your mother, he'll worry that you're going to end up as low as you were on her anniversary and he'll tell his moms and they'll worry even more. If you tell him about how awful you've been feeling over the past couple of months, you'll end up in a group home or a mental facility…no one wants a crazy girl.

"Looks like there's something more than 'not much' going on."

You look at him and he gives you a 'go on' sort of look, but you shrug your shoulders and focus your gaze on the waves. "So, how's things with Talya?"

He sighs at your lack of response, but answers anyway. "Not bad. She's been acting weird though."

"Why?" You ask.

"She was worried that I might have a thing for you," he admits. "Which is stupid."

His tone of voice doesn't match his words though. His tone of voice says _is there something between us? _His voice says _Could there ever be anything? _

You shake your head. "I hope you know that I don't like you like that Brandon."

It's the truth. It is. Whatever might have been there a couple of months ago, has since faded away with the rest of your emotions and you know that he's better hearing that out loud rather than constantly wondering _what if _and _maybe. _

He smiles. "I know that." His voice is a little sad, but not mad or annoyed. "Nothing could ever happen between us."

"Why aren't you in class?" You ask, diverting the conversation.

"Free period. Thought I'd go for a walk and I saw you. You're supposed to be in English, right?"

"Yeah."

"You do know that your foster mom Is the deputy head of this school, right? "

You nod and sigh. "Mhm."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't be missing classes. You're grounded."

You laugh bitterly and look at him disbelievingly. "Don't you ever break the rules? Why are you so worried, anyway?"

He shrugs and stands up. "I would be just as worried if Mariana was out here alone, skipping class, and looking like she was about to cry."

Then he walks away.

Why is it that this family are so intent on treating you like family? Why make you feel at home when you're not here forever? Why do they always have to try so hard when they know you don't want any of it?

It baffles you.

You stay out there and think about nothing at all until you hear a bell ring and you head home so that you will arrive around the same time as everyone else.

_**A/N: This isn't a Brallie Story. **_


	10. Birthday: Part 2

**A/N: I don't know if people are losing interest in the story, but I have a feeling that they are and I would really rather people tell me where I am going wrong as opposed to just not reviewing at all, so _please _let me know what you think! **

**This chapter took a while to write, and I'm hoping I can get the next chapter up as soon as possible because round about now is when things really start going downhill. **

**I've already planned the entire story out and I can't explain how excited I am to share it with you guys. **

**Thank you so much for your reviews, favourites, and follows. Have a great day! **

**Birthday: Part 2 **

When you get in, Stef is waiting in the dining room and you know right away that she is waiting to talk to you. Obviously Lena called.

"Callie, let's talk."

Strict Stef voice scares you.

You sit down opposite her and she gives you a narrow eye look. "You never went to your last three classes."

"I didn't."

Stef raises an eyebrow and straightens herself, waiting for some sort of argument. "Well, are you going to tell me why?"

For a moment, you stare at her, unsure of what to say. She leans forward, waiting for an excuse or a lie or _something _but you just stare and shrug your shoulders like you always seem to do and sit back in your chair.

"Callie?"

"I felt sick, okay?" you say, your voice a little harsher than you wanted it to be. "I just needed some time to breathe. You all hover all the time, I just needed to sit by myself and breathe."

"We hover because we worry."

You stand up and pull your bag over your shoulder. "Well you don't need to worry." You mumble. "I'm going for a nap, I have a headache."

...

"_Hey callie," You hear someone whispering. You don't open your eyes because you aren't quite ready for it to be morning. You groan and turn over. "Callie, wake up." _

_When your senses come to you, you realise that it is Jude who is trying to wake you up and you open your eyes right away. "Jude, what's wrong?" _

"_Nothing…I just..." he sits up on your bed next to you and hands you something wrapped in a piece of tissue paper. "I figured I'd have to wake you up early to give you it." _

_You open up the tissue to find a small rock inside and you give him a questioning look. "Thanks?" _

"_I got it on our field trip a month ago, and I thought I'd give you it for your birthday. I know it's not much, but…It's a rock from outer space!" _

_You smile and ruffle his hair. "No way? Outer space?" _

"_Yeah, the science teacher said that it's amazing because who knows how long it was floating up there and how far out it was and it ended up here! How cool is that?" _

"_The coolest." You say, staring at the small piece of rock between your fingers. _

"_Happy birthday, Callie." _

_You wrap your arms around him and squeeze him tight. "Thanks, bud."_

...

The smell of chicken wakes you up from your 'nap' and you notice that it's since gotten dark outside. You pull a sweatshirt over your head and wander down the stairs towards the kitchen, mentally noting that you've only eaten half an apple today.

Stef is standing at the table, chopping onions and Lena is sitting beside her, grading papers. You can hear Brandon playing piano and Jude and Jesus are playing video games in the living room.

"Good nap?" Lena asks, once she's spotted you.

You shrug and pull a bottle of water out of the fridge. "okay, I suppose. What time is it?"

"It's 6:45, dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes. We were actually just about to wake you up…how you feeling?"

You give her a weak smile and nod and sit opposite her, taking a few gulps of the water. You feel weird, but you think it maybe has something to do with the lack of sugar in your system. Your head feels fuzzy and you feel a little warm and clammy. You think about the food that they are about to serve up and it makes you feel a little nauseous.

"Could I maybe just go shower and go back to sleep? I'm not hungry."

Lena looks up from her papers and takes a good look at you, clearly trying to figure out whether you are lying or not, but then she stands up and walks towards you and places a hand on your forehead. "You feel a little warm."

Mid-day sleeping always makes you feel this way, but all you can think about is getting back into bed and sleeping some more.

Who knew lack of food would make you _this _exhausted?

"Try and eat something and then you can go to bed, okay?"

"mkay."

Dinner is a solemn affair. You don't bother with the food on your plate and you don't look up from the ground, you just listen to the conversation around you and keep your mouth shut. You notice that you feel ten times worse today than you have in weeks and it just makes you even more exhausted.

Once everyone has finished eating, Lena takes away plates and Stef stops everyone from leaving the table.

"It has come to my attention that we have a birthday in the room!" she chirps and everyone looks directly at you. You smile.

Lena leaves the room for a moment and comes back with a box wrapped in dark purple paper in her hands and gives it over to you, smiling from ear to ear. "Open it!"

You rip open the paper like normal people do and the first thing you see is the _Canon _logo and then a picture of a Camera. You gasp because it's not just a camera, it's one of those professional SLR camera's fully equipt with two lenses and a memory card and you are physically shaking.

Why? Why would they spend this kind of money on you? Why are they doing this? You don't deserve this. It doesn't make any sense.

You once got a box of chocolates for your birthday in a home and it was the best birthday since your mom died.

Now they're giving you a camera, knowing well how much you love photography. They know how much this means to you and how much you've wanted one of these for years and yet all it does is make you feel physically sick.

Why are they doing this?

"uh….this is…it's too much, I-I."

Stef Stops you and wraps her arms around you. "Nonsense. Happy birthday, Love."

They bring out cake and, in a perfect melody, everyone begins to sing to you with big smiles on their faces and huge candles on the cakes and, when they place it in front of you, your eyes begin to well up.

...

'_Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday dear Callie, Happy birthday to you!" _

_You look around the table at all of your family and friends and you don't think you've ever been this happy before. You got a Barbie convertible, a Barbie dollhouse, Barbie bed sheets, art supplies and a chocolate cake and everyone is here to sing happy birthday. _

_They place the cake out in front of you and your mom smiles down at you. "Make a wish." _

_You inhale with everything you've got. _

_**I want to be this happy forever. **_

_Then you blow out all six of the candles in one go._

...

When you're no longer in the memory, you're looking at a vanilla cake and 17 candles and a different group of people who like you just the same. You're looking at a wish that was never granted, at a life that has never been quite as easy, at a brother who thinks you are the best thing in the world. You're looking at people who are going to disappoint you, and a cake that is going to make more room for darkness and they expect you to make a wish when you blow out the candles, but you just close your eyes and exhale and stand up and leave the table with tears in your eyes.

You go to the bathroom, close the door and stand on the scale and sigh when you notice that you are still 110 after a long day of eating nothing at all and doing nothing at all and you wish that it were easier than having to wait for a new day to see a new number. You wish it would just go down as you willed it. You don't understand why you feel so wrong because today was supposed to be _right _because it was an even number and you are 1lb closer to your next goal and you got a new camera and Stef and Lena love you even though you left school early and they still got you a birthday cake, even if it wasn't chocolate and they still sang happy birthday, but you just feel like today was rock bottom and you can't quite figure out why.

And you don't figure out why until Stef finds you in the kitchen at 3am with a slice of untouched vanilla cake sitting in front of you having a stare off.

"You gonna eat that?" she asks, taking a seat next to you.

"Why do we always end up here?"

Stef smiles and shrugs her shoulders. "We're the night owls of the family."

You let out a dry laugh and look down at the cake, thinking about the 350 calories staring back at you, about what they would do to your progress. "My mom always got chocolate."

Stef gets herself a slice and moves back to the same spot at the table with you. "Oh? You don't like vanilla?"

You shrug and take a deep breath. "I do. She just thought that chocolate was everyone's favourite and that a birthday cake was nothing if it wasn't made entirely of every type of chocolate you could get."

"Sounds like a good cake. I'll remember that for next time."

"mmm."

Stef takes a huge bite of the cake and looks at you intently like she's waiting for you to talk to her, but you aren't entirely sure what it is you want to say. You don't really want to say anything at all.

Sometimes, silence makes things easier.

Stef waits a few minutes before she says anything again. "You don't like birthdays, do you?"

You shake your head and push the cake around on your plate distantly.

"Everyone here loves them."

You look at her and watch as a small smile appears on her lips, you think she must be remembering all the birthdays that have happened over the years. You think it must be so easy to fall into the memories of a family that still exists. When you remember, all you get is nausea.

"That's good." You whisper, your voice monotonous when you want it to be kind.

"My mom used to put everything aside for our birthdays. I guess it's just hard to enjoy them now because they never really measure up." You take the smallest bite of the sponge and you savour the sweetness on your tongue, chewing as slowly as you can. You know you'll regret this later, but sometimes you can't stop yourself from being weak. "You guys came close though. Thanks."

What you want to say is _please don't do it again _because you can't let them think it's okay to spend money on you and fuss over you. What you want to say is _please don't give me a taste of what I can't have once I leave here _because you want her to understand what this does to you. What you want to say is _please leave me alone_ but you just sit in a comfortable silence and stare at the piece of cake on the plate in front of you.

Sometimes, you want them to take you in their arms and never let you go.

Most of the time, you know that you will eventually have to say goodbye.

You can't miss what you never let yourself have.

"Are you still unhappy?" Stef speaks into the silence.

You look up from the cake and shake your head slowly. "no." you say.

Although you know that it is a lie and you know that she knows that too because she gives you a look that says _how can I help _and her mouth opens like she is about to speak, but the words die on her tongue and her head dips down as she sighs.

A few minutes later, her hand covers yours on the table and she looks at you closely. "I'm here."

Then she goes to bed and mumbles something about how you have to get to sleep aswell.

You realise that the reason you are this low today, the reason that it doesn't matter that you've hit 110 and that you've been given presents and cake and been sung to, is because you aren't so sure you're ever going to experience it again.

This is as good as it gets and you haven't even had the chance to enjoy it.

God, you wish you hadn't eaten that mouthful of cake.


	11. Does this darkness have a name?

_**A/N: I've been bombarded with uni work, so this has been put to the side for a while. I will update when I can. Thank you so much for the response to my last chapter, it was good to hear your thoughts on the direction i've been taking the story. As for the guest who said they didn't like the ED storyline, I completely understand. I won't be keeping it going for **_**too **_**long, but it was always my intention to write about it so I didn't want to change anything about it when I got into it. I'm always open for constructive criticism, so please let me know what you think if you have any problems (without being too mean cause I can't handle nasty constructive criticism)**_

_Does this darkness have a name? This cruelty, this hatred, how did it find us? Did it steal into our lives or did we seek it out and embrace it? What happened to us that we now send our children into the world like we send young men to war, hoping for their safe return and knowing that some will be lost along the way. When did we lose our way? Consumed by the shadows, swallowed whole by the darkness. Does this darkness have a name? Is it your name? – Lucas Scott, One Tree Hill. _

Three days before Stef and Lena get married, you weigh 98lbs.

The feeling is bittersweet, because it comes with a price. You feel lighter than you did yesterday, but your mind feels heavier and you are unexplainably exhausted. To top it off, today you have to testify against Liam.

When you wake up, before you put on your brand new 'i've got it together' suit that Lena bought for you, you manage 98 push ups and a twenty minute run that your body protests violently against.

Liam was something you'd tried to push away for a long time, something you'd tried to deny and ignore even though his name was always there biting at your mind. Today, you're trying to think of the number 98, of the number that might come up tomorrow, of the miles you've ran and the constant battle you've been trying hard to win.

Instead, you think of him.

You step into the shower at 8:50am, a while after you hear everyone leave for their walk to school.

...

_"Callie, this is Liam, our son." _

_Mrs Olmastead points towards the boy standing at the bottom of the stairs and you smile weakly, arms wrapped defensively around Jude like they always are in a new home. _

_You look at the boy for a moment and cant help but blush at the way he stares back and at how attractive he is. _

_After a moment of back and forth uncomfortable chatting, you look around the house and it surprises you how _normal _it is. There's no mould, no mess, family pictures, toys, nice bedrooms. It feels good, safe. _

_When you reach your room at the end of a long hall, you run your hand along the silk purple bedding and look around at the neatly painted walls and notice a pair of brand new pyjamas folded neatly on a chest of drawers under the window. For the first time since you were eight years old, you feel like this home might be safe. There is a knock at the door and you turn around to see Liam leaning against the frame with a sheepish grin on his face. _

_"Hi." You say. _

_He walks across the room and stands beside you, so that you are side by side and you look out at the back yard, equipt with a tire swing. _

_"what's it like?" He asks."Being in a different home all the time." _

_You shrug and cross your arms around yourself. "You get used to it, I suppose." _

_"I think you'll be here for a while." He says, and his voice is warm and supportive and honest. He reaches his arm out and places it on your shoulder and you turn so that you are face to face, looking into each others eyes. "Could you get used to that?" _

_You smile and blush. "I think so." _

...

There is a knock at the door and you come away from the memory, noting there are goosebumps all over your arms. You hate thinking about him.

"Callie, You'll need to hurry up. We need to leave in an hour, honey."

You nod your head and manage a weak _okay _and then turn off the shower so that you can force yourself to get ready.

You cross the bathroom and wrap yourself in a towel and glance at yourself in the mirror for a moment, noticing a thin scar on the top of your arm. You run your fingers along the white line.

…

_"Your mom is gonna kill us." You are in his car, coming home from the cinema and you notice that you've gone an hour over curfew. _

_He laughs and shakes his head, reaching over to turn up the radio and some song you've never heard before blasts into the car. "No, she's not. Stop worrying so much, Cal." _

_You feel guilty for even being in the car in the first place. They'd warned you before, no relationships with foster siblings, but you can't help but sort of like him. He's the first person that's come along in years who treats you special, who really cares for you. He picks you up in the car when you're in trouble, he holds you when you are sad about your mother, he's always there. Is it really your fault that you have feelings for him? Is there really anything you can do to stop it? _

_He'd called tonight 'A date, but not really a date' to make you feel a little better about the whole sneaking around thing and you'd agreed to go because you needed a night away from things and you feel guilty because you've spent the two hours since the movie ended chatting in his car and holding hands and you _know _it's wrong, but it feels good. _

_"Maybe you should drive a little faster, it's 11:45." you say. _

_He chuckles and nods his head, picking up the speed a little since the road is dark and empty and he turns the music up louder. _

_**'I drink to remember, i smoke to forget, some things to be proud of, some stuff to regret. Gone down some dark alley's in my own head, but something is changing, changing, changing' **_

_You roll down the windows and turn the music up a notch louder so that the car is slightly vibrating along with the beat. _

_You've never felt this thrilled. _

_'__**So I kiss goodbye to every little ounce of pain, light a cigarette and wish the world away. I got out, I got out, I'm alive and now I'm here to stay' **_

_He turns to look at you and you both smile from ear to ear and you move yourself to the music, your legs jumping, your upper body swaying, your hair blowing with the wind from the 70mph drive. _

_**'so I hold two fingers up to yesterday, light a cigarette and smoke it all away. I got out, I got out, I'm alive and now i'm here to stay.' **_

_The car swerves before you can do anything to stop it, and you feel yourself spinning and spinning, flipping. You hear metal crunching and you still hear music playing as the car flies through the air. _

_**'There's a story for every corner of this place, running so hard, you got out but your knees got grazed.' **_

_When the car stops moving, and the music stops playing, you hear Liam shouting your name and you feel pain radiating from your right arm and then the world goes black. _

…

You'd tried to forget about that accident because remembering it means remembering how stupid you'd been to be in that car in the first place. You'd broken your arm in three places, had to get 12 stitches and suffered from mild concussion and Liam walked away without a scratch and a pat on the back from his father for getting help right away and no one even wondered why you had been out so late in the first place.

The sad thing was that, after that accident, you had only grown closer.

You dry yourself off, put the suit on, quickly dry and style your hair and put on some make up and look at yourself one last time.

…

_"Wow," He whispers. "You look beautiful." _

_You're wearing a purple lace dress his mother had bought for you a few weeks ago and standing in front of a full length mirror in your bedroom, running your hands along the lace. "shut up, you know I hate dresses." You laugh. _

_He stands behind you and you notice how tall and muscular he is, his arms wrap around your waist. "Don't, come on, not here." _

_"I have something to tell you." He says, and he turns you around so that you have to look up to see into his eyes. _

_"What?" _

_"My mom and Dad have to take Jude to his parents evening tomorrow night. It's just gonna be me and you." _

_You smile and shrug your shoulders. "So?" _

_"Well…I thought we could…you know?" _

_You feel uneasy about the idea, like it'd never really occurred to you before that he might actually want to go that far. So far, the most that you'd done was a small kiss and that had only been once. Part of you know's that is because you aren't supposed to be doing this. It's a _good _home. It's a _safe _family and you realise that messing around might mean Jude has to lose it because of you. _

_You're supposed to be here to protect him, not hurt him. _

_"I don't know, I mean…What if they find out?" _

_He wraps his arms around you tight and kisses the top of your head. "Don't worry," He says. "They wont." _

_And you feel a little sick. _

…

Why hadn't you just walked away from it right then and there?

No, this is not your fault. This is _his _fault. _He done this to you. _

You wander down to the living room and find Stef and Lena ready to go with cups of coffee in their hands, staring distantly at the TV and you can tell they feel as apprehensive as you do.

You sit down next to them and you wonder how they'd react if it'd happened under their roof.

…

_"Callie, What's happening?" Jude asks. _

_He's standing at the frame of your door, holding some folded clothes in his arms and he has tears rolling down his cheeks. _

_"I'm so sorry Jude." You mumble, throwing clothes quickly into a suitcase. _

_"I don't understand. We've been doing so good here…what happened? What did you do?" _

_You've been trying to hold it together all day, but right now it feels as though you're at the end of your rope. _

_They found out. They found out and he told them it was __**you. **_

_When you'd pulled his mother to the side to explain the truth, to tell your side of the story, she'd only laughed and said she always knew you'd be trouble for her wonderful angel. _

_Why would anyone believe a foster kid? _

_"Jude, listen, I'm sorry. Okay? It's gonna be okay, we'll get somewhere else good." _

_Jude looks at you like you've hit him over the face and steps back, fresh tears in his eyes. "You did this?" _

_Then Mrs Olmstead steps out from her bedroom and nods her head. "Yes, Jude. You're sister is a no-good slut." _

_You don't remember much of what happened next. _

_Jude tells you later that he's never seen you so angry, he's never seen you cry like that._

…

"What would you have done?" You whisper. "What would you have done if…if it had happened under your roof?"

Lena looks at you closely and takes your hand gently and you notice there is a small tear starting to well up in her eye.

"We would have believed you, honey."

And that's all you need to hear to get you through the day.

* * *

><p>"Unfortunately, due to lack of evidence against Mr. Olmstead, we have no option other than to dismiss this case from going any further."<p>

For a moment, the ground beneath you feels a little uneasy, but you take a few deep breaths and walk slowly out of the courtroom without saying a single word to Lena or Stef. You head straight towards the bathroom without worrying about whether or not they are behind you and you close a stall door behind you before sliding to the floor and holding your head in your hands.

He won.

That bastard won.

He took everything from you, he treated you like a possession, and then he gets to walk out unscathed?

You need to carry what happened on your back for the rest of your life and he gets to live a life without even a hint of remorse, without any punishment.

People with records don't deserve justice, that is what they have basically told you.

You're not worth the time nor the effort.

You are your mistakes. You are your past. You are a no-good, piece of worthless trash. You're a slut, a bitch. You are nothing.

You don't deserve one good thing, one reward for living this stupid life even though all it's done is knock you down over and over again.

You throw up and then you cry.

"Callie?"

You'd expected Stef to come after you sooner, but you are grateful that they've decided to give you a moment alone to collect yourself because, by the time she comes, you've managed to stop the tears and the nausea and so you stand up, flush the toilet, and leave the stall.

She's waiting right outside with a sad smile on her face.

"You did good, you know."

You don't respond at first because you aren't entirely sure what to say. How did you do good? How is any of what happened _good? _

You sigh and wash your hands, letting her words settle into the room.

"I mean, I think that what you said was really brave, love."

Brave.

Fighting in a war, that's brave.

Police officers, they're brave.

Going into a burning building to save a life is brave.

How is what you done brave.

It was just honesty. Not bravery.

"Yeah."

She puts a hand on your shoulder and bends down a little so that you're eye to eye. "I'm so proud of you, Callie. So, so proud. What you did…not many people could do that, honey."

And you don't mind it when she wraps her arms around you for a hug.

In fact, you sort of welcome it.


	12. Through the dark

_**A/N: Was the last chapter okay? I never really got much of a response and…idk…reviews sort of fuel my writing to be honest so it's taken me a while to get around to writing this chapter. It was noted that Stef and Lena should have noticed before now about the problem and thats something I was actually thinking whilst writing the chapter, but the thing about Eating Disorders is that people work hard to hide them and Callie is an incredibly secretive person, things are about to be out in the open, and the next few chapters are gonna be a rough ride for Callie, but then it's all uphill from there. **_

_**Also, to make it clear, in this story Lena and Stef ask Callie and Jude if they want to be adopted the day before the wedding and not the day of, just makes the way i'm writing this easier. **_

_**Please. Please. Please. Please. Review. Please. **_

_Stef _

You never thought you'd have more than one kid.

When you were younger, before you met Mike, you never thought you would want to have any kids. You thought you'd be the type of woman who worked every day and devoted her life to that one sole purpose. Part of you thought maybe this was because you loved being a cop, but the logical part of you knew that this was because you thought that you could never be with anyone.

But then you met Mike. And you knew, you _knew _that you didn't love him. You did love him, but not in the way that other girls fall madly head over heels in love with their own men. You cared for him and he gave you a sense of security and you realise now that he was just a safety blanket. You didn't really know what it was like to really, truly, properly love in a way that sent electricity running through your veins and made your hands shake with excitement. It was easy to fall into a semi-comfortable life with him because you didn't know there were any other options. So, you fell into a routine of being the kind of woman who kissed her husband goodnight and you became the kind of woman who cooked him dinner and argued about taxes, even though there was a part of you that knew, really deep down, that you were never supposed to be this woman.

You'd hear of people talk about their roller-coaster marriages, and it would confuse you because you were on one steady, still, journey.

It didn't bother you that much though, even though it meant that you were spending a life being a different person than you had quietly imagined when you were a kid.

You wouldn't let yourself think about being _that _person. Your father wouldn't have it, he would be ashamed.

And he had been, when he had found you exploring your options, and he had sent you to have a chat with a man that told you you were just confused and that it would be okay, you'd be okay.

And so you became that woman. For years, you waited hand in foot for that man and you loved him the best way you could and then Brandon was born.

After that, things were never quite as simple.

You'd dream about a better life and mentally hurt yourself for even beginning to imagine those things.

Of course, you were sort of happy. You had a child and a child had you and you never realised that you'd been waiting a lifetime to be a mother, but it was wonderful.

When Lena came into the picture, it was long after things began to go downhill with him. You would snap at him for the silliest of things and he would blame you every time something went wrong in the house and you both knew that you weren't really in love. Mike admitted that he knew that all along. That he had loved you so deeply that he couldn't see you walk away, even though he knew there was probably more out there waiting for you.

And Lena showed you what you were doing wrong. She showed you what you had been denying all these year wasn't quite as terrifying as you thought it would be.

There was something about her that made you want to cry, scream, run. She was gentle and graceful and warm, everything about her was the opposite of Mike and you knew that that meant that everything about a life with her would be the opposite of the life you'd been stuck in for such a long time.

There were feelings you didn't even know existed and you started to realise why sparks never flew with Mike.

You loved her. You _loved _her. Like you were _supposed _to love him. Like the priest told you to love men. He told you that you were confused, but somehow you realised that the moment you locked eyes with Lena, you were finally sure and ready and _happy_.

So you decided to take control of a life you had stopped caring much about, you decided to let yourself be happy.

Now you have three kids and two foster kids. Five kids. Soon-to-be officially five.

You haven't asked them about the adoption yet, but you had decided on it for sure last night and its making angry butterflies flutter about in your stomach.

Now they are sitting in front of you with hopeful faces as you say the words out loud and Jude looks over the moon.

Callie looks worried.

Like you might take it back. Like you might break her heart. Like you might break _her_.

And you're scared to say anything because tomorrow…tomorrow you are taking her to the hospital and she knows nothing about it and you know, you just _know, _that she is going to feel abandoned, lost, rejected.

But you want to help her.

* * *

><p><em>"She's lost weight, Stef." <em>

_"I know." _

_"She looks sick." _

_"I noticed that, too." _

_"How could we have missed this?"_

* * *

><p>Despite the fear in her eyes, Callie agrees to the adoption, but moments after a well deserved 'mamma sandwich' she walks away with her head ducked down and her hands in her pocket.<p>

You wait a while. Ten minutes, maybe fifteen, and you go up to the room and knock lightly on the door before opening it up.

She's sitting at the edge of her bed, looking down at her feet. You don't think she's aware of your presence until she speaks.

"I used to dream of this, you know." She looks up at you, and there are tears in her eyes. "A family. A home."

You pull the desk chair over and sit in front of her.

"And I used to think it would be simple. Someone would take us in, fall in love with us and then we'd become one big happy family."

She takes a shuddering breath and looks directly into your eyes, and there's a flash of panic and fear and helplessness that you wish you could make disappear.

"I stopped imagining it a long time ago," She says, wiping tears away quickly with the back of her hands like it might make the pain less obvious, like ti might wipe away her worries as well. "I realised that life would be easier if I spent more time building a thick skin and less time dreaming about things that couldn't happen."

You reach out to take her hand, but she shakes her head and you realise that you just need to let her speak. She needs to say this and she needs to do it alone.

She stays silent for a few minutes and you watch as she pushes away any emotion, holds in all the sobs that are screaming to get out. "and now that I'm being offered what I wanted," She mumbles, and her facade falls away. Her face contorts into that of sheer terror, she is about to break. "I don't think I can do it."

"I don't…" a quick sob escapes. Sharp and painful. She closes her eyes and shakes her head. "I don't think I know how."

And she looks like she is finally ready to let the pain out, but she stops and breathes and all of the pain and agony you could see in her features a moment ago makes its way straight to her eyes. Her face is straight. "I'm sorry." She whispers. "God. I, ah, I'm so sorry, Stef. It's your wedding day and it's a good day," She shakes her head again to rid herself of the remaining shred of emotion and positions her body to look poised and ready to be strong Callie and Brave Callie. "I shouldn't be saying this stuff."

You reach out again and, this time, she doesn't flinch. She just stares straight ahead without her eyes catching yours. "I didn't trust anyone before I met Lena." You say, and she looks up at you with tears in her eyes. "I mean, i had Mike and Brandon, but Mike and I weren't in love and I couldn't very well talk to Brandon about things because he was a kid. I never thought anyone could come along and actually be there and stay there and, when I first met her, I was terrified. I couldn't let myself love her because….what if she left? You know?"

"It's scary, opening up your heart to people and letting them in. But, the thing is, its so worth it in the end. Once you get over the _what if _factor, you get less scared. We're here, hon. We're here for the long run, we love you guys, we _chose _you. We want you to be our kid because you mean so much to us."

"You want us to be yours?" She asks, her voice a small whisper, and she looks up at you with wide, tearful eyes.

You nod. "You already are."


	13. On my knees and out of luck

_**A/N: Can I get responses like that last chapter every single time, please? wow. **_

_**I've been writing this chapter for a while and, somehow, I've managed to get it to around 5000 words, I was going to split it but I couldn't find the right place to end the chapter so I thought…what the heck! I am taking a two week hiatus to finish university work for the semester and then I'll be back to writing. **_

_**I would say this is what it's all been leading up to, thenext few chapters are the biggest and most important chapters for the development of the story so hopefully i've done it right! **_

_**PLEASSSSSSEEEEE PLEAAAAASE REVIEW TO MAKE UNIVERSITY STRESS GO AWAY PLEASE thank you xo**_

* * *

><p><strong>Callie. <strong>

_94 _

Ninety is a big number, you think. If there are ninety people in a room, then it is a fairly filled room. Ninety minutes is an hour and a half. Ninety soldiers could fight and win…depending on how many people they are fighting against.

It's all a matter of perspective.

If there was a stadium built for 20,000 people and only ninety showed up, then ninety wouldn't be a lot. If you ate ninety packets of chips in a day, you would have eaten too much, but if you'd eaten ninety in a lifetime then it'd be pretty normal, depending on how long the lifetime is.

Ninety is a big number.

The day of the wedding, you weigh ninety-four pounds.

You say it out loud, stretching out the letters like they might make you feel good, like you might feel as though you've achieved something, like you might believe you've gone far enough. _"ninety-four…niiiiinnnneeety-fouuuuur." _

But then you wonder how 90 might feel.

Your mind flashes to Stef, to Lena. They asked you if they could adopt you.

They want you to be their kid.

Does that make what you're doing pointless?

They _want _you. Why is it still so hard to comprehend?

Does this mean you should ask them for help?

_You don't need help._

There is an altered dress hanging on your wardrobe door and you stare at it for a while before taking it down and laying it down flat on your bed. The last time you tried it on, you weighed 100. Is 6lbs enough to make this dress too big now? You sigh and do your usual routine of sit ups and push ups in the bathroom before showering and standing in front of the mirror for twenty minutes to inspect what needs to go next. Something _always _needs to go next.

The dress hangs loose. You take it off and change back into leggings until you have to put it on later in the day.

You hold your arms out by your side and shiver at the sight of how boney they have become.

You had a friend when you were younger who had anorexia and she explained to you that people were wrong when they said that people with eating disorders saw themselves bigger in the mirror. She saw what everyone else saw, but she saw it from a different perspective, she would look straight at the problem as opposed to seeing how little she had weighed.

You don't have an eating disorder, though.

You're strong willed and strong minded and you don't have any problems. You're just shrinking into the background and you refuse to take anyone with you.

Lena and Stef make the biggest breakfast you've ever seen, but Stef has gone out to pick up glasses that never arrived when they were supposed to and Lena is outside setting up the tables and so you don't bother eating anything because there isn't anyone to look at you funny for passing by the opportunity to stuff your face with nutella and pancakes like everyone else is.

You work out instead. Well, as much as a work out as you can get in, which involves walking up and down the stairs and helping Lena in with the tables.

The smallest of things can be counted as a workout if you do them enough.

By time 9:45am comes around, and you are bringing in the last table with Lena to help, you are so exhausted that your legs are shaking.

_ninety-four_

You woke up at 4am this morning to run, without considering the fact that you'd be busy all day and you are beginning to regret your decision because you cannot get sick on the day of the wedding, you can't.

You get the table halfway across the yard before your arms fall like deadweights and the table tumbles to the grass. You take a moment; leaning forward with your hands supporting you on your knees and Lena places her hand on your back.

"Callie?"

You shake your head and take a shaky breath. "I'm okay, I'm fine…just a little warm."

You wipe the sweat away from your brow with the back of your hand and clamp your eyes shut, hoping that, when they open, the world will be less topsy turvy.

"Maybe you should go inside and take a seat?"

You nod and stand up straight, the ground slightly tilts beneath your feet and you sway with your eyes closed, willing yourself to take a step towards the house, but fearing that you'll collapse if you do. You feel an arm being placed under your own and across your back, and then your arm is lifted and pulled over her shoulder and you're sure that your legs are about to buckle so you hope that she gets you inside quickly.

Lenas voice is whispering in your ear. "Okay, you're okay. Just try and stay upright for me, honey."

Has the yard always been this far away from the sofa?

There is blood rushing in your ears, nausea overwhelms you, and then...

You open your eyes and you are laying down on the couch, a wet cloth on your head and Lena's worried face hovering over you.

"Wha-…"

"You passed out." She says, her voice stern…unhappy. "I'll get you some juice." and she disappears into the kitchen.

There are ninety calories in a glass of the orange juice they drink in this house. If you drink it, will it effect your weight? You shake the thought out of your head with the realisation that, if you don't drink the juice, you will surely pass out for a second time before the day is through. When Lena returns and hands you a glass of cold orange juice, you gulp down the entire glass greedily in a matter of seconds and lay back on the couch with your arm over your eyes.

"Take some deep breaths and relax, you're probably just dehydrated." She says, sitting down next to you and placing a hand on your knee.

You nod your head and sit up straight so that she thinks that you are okay, even though you feel like death.

"Have you eaten breakfast?" she asks gently and you nod.

"Yeah? What did you have?" She asks, and you don't like her patronising tone. The words say _I believe you and I'm interested in hearing more _but her voice says _I know for a fact you haven't eaten. _Does that mean they know how little you've been eating recently? They hadn't mentioned the weight loss that she had clearly noticed when you had gone dress shopping, were they just scared to say anything to the girl who kicks a fuss every time there is an accusation in the room?

"I uh…I had a pancake with nutella and banana." You say.

"We didn't buy bananas, Callie."

Caught.

You have two options here: Lie your way out of it, or you could eat right now to distract her from the thought.

"I wasn't hungry and I thought that you and stef would be annoyed if I skipped breakfast…now that I think about it, though, I'm actually pretty hungry." You're blabbering, talking quick, making excuses.

She makes you eat three whole pancakes with bacon and syrup.

_'Your blood sugars are obviously too low.'_

You loathe her for it.

You're leaning over the toilet, throwing up, when you hear Judes voice.

* * *

><p>"w-what are you doing?"<p>

You jump at the sound of his voice and refuse to turn around and look at his face, You hadn't locked the door. You'd been in such a hurry to get the food out of your system that you had completely forgotten to lock the door behind you and now he's found you in a position you'd never wanted anyone to see.

Because you had promised yourself you would never resort to this.

Starving was okay, that was strong and that was a challenge and that took will power, but throwing up was weak because you only had to throw up when you had made a mistake in the first place.

You flush the toilet and rub your eyes with the backs of your hand. "Go away, Jude." You whisper.

But you know that he hasn't left, you can still hear him breathing.

"Callie?"

You pull the seat down and bring yourself up so that you can sit on it, your body faces him but your eyes face the ground. "I felt sick, must be a stomach bug."

He goes still and silent for a moment, but then you see him shake his head through your peripheral vision.

"You're lying."

"I'm not, I swear. I felt sick and I-"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" He asks, his voice harsh and loud and you look up to see angry tears in his eyes. "Huh? Do you?"

You shake your head and run a shaky hand through your hair. "No, I-I…"

"I knew something was wrong. I mean look at you Cal, you're so skinny."

He looks you up and down and his face contorts, it goes from angry to hurt in a matter of seconds and you don't think you've ever felt this guilty.

"You look sick." He whispers.

You stand up quickly and shake your head, moving towards him and holding his shoulders tightly, as if the action will make this go away. "No, I'm fine. I'm okay, Jude. I'm okay, I'm fine. We're fine."

But he shakes his head again. "You are so selfish, Callie. God, you only think about yourself."

You take a step back, like his words have burned you. You think they actually have, you are shaking.

"What do you think you're going to achieve from this? Do you think you're just going to disappear and no one is going to notice? Didn't you think about me? About how much this hurts me? You never talk anymore, Cal. You never talk to me…you never help me with my homework."

He shakes his head and wipes a tear away with his sleeve. "You think you just hurt yourself when you do things like this but…you don't. You hurt me. We're a package deal, you know that. How do you expect me to be okay without you?"

"Ju-"

"No, Callie. No more excuses. You've always ruined things for yourself, Cal. Always. If you….if this gets worse…do you just expect me to shrug my shoulders and move on?"

He takes a shuddering breath and looks down at the ground. "I miss you."

Then, he walks away.

There is a monster inside of you that has been kept at bay for all of these months. The monster that makes you do stupid things, the monster that makes you hurt people. You thought you could get rid of it, that was why you had started this. But you now notice, as a fire spreads its way through your veins and your organs turn a angry shade of dark red, that the monster was just waiting for the right time to make an appearance.

You slam the door shut and grip your hair with your hands, pulling at the clumps of hair to try and make the pain inside of you disappear.

You have never felt this way before. Every inch of your body is shaking and your breaths are coming out in short staccato bursts.

_Keep it together, Callie. It's the wedding, keep it together just for today. You can break down tomorrow, not today. _

An angry sob escapes you and you lean forward so that you are curled in on yourself. You can barely breathe.

You see the scale in the corner of the room and you stare at it for a moment, with shaking hands you bring it closer to you so that you are kneeling before it.

Ninety-four pounds.

You rip off your dress and discard it on the ground and stand on the scale.

_93._

There is a voice inside your head that tells you why it's important that you are doing this. It's deep and angry and it bellows in your ear in the middle of the night that you need to keep going, keep losing, keep shrinking.

The voice tells you that food is bad. The voice tells you that running is good.

The voice tells you that you are ugly, pathetic, useless, hopeless, fat fat _fat. _

_You realise that it's _your _voice. _

You lay down on your back and do ninety-three gruelling push-ups through your erratic heartbeat and hyperventilating.

_ninety-three _

_ninety-three _

_you should be ninety _

Once you are done, you wash your face and apply the make up Mariana had picked out for you, fix your hair, put on the dress, and leave the bathroom. It's 6pm and the ceremony will be starting in half an hour, so you make your way downstairs and find the house filled with people you've never met before. You smile and shake hands with strangers and make your way through the crowd before you find Jude in the corner of the kitchen. You want to walk towards him and take him into your arms, but how would the conversation go? _You ruin everything for me. You always do this. __**You're so selfish. **_You swallow the lump in your throat and head out to the yard instead.

How do you undo this?

How can you make his life easier? How can you make him happier? Maybe he is right. He _is _right. You are selfish, you never think of anyone else. You are destructive and you ruin everyone's life. He'd be better off without you.

He'd be much better off without you.

You picture his future in your mind and he could be happy here, with a family and with a home and nice food and friends. He could grow up really safe and happy here. Why should you stick around only to make it harder for him to have that?

If you weren't here, wouldn't he be able to let go of his past?

You're the only thing that holds him down.

Stef and Lena want to adopt both of you, but you know they'd be better off with just one. It would cost them less money, it would take up less room, they could love him twice as much and he deserves that.

So you should run. Far. Fast. Alone.

You'll do it during the night.

He'll be better off.

…

The wedding is beautiful. You've never seen two people love each other as much as they do and it warms your heart because you see the way Jude looks at them like _those are my moms _even before they are officially his moms. There are pretty lights like fireflies hanging on the trees and Lena glows in her ivory dress. Everyone dances and Stef smiles at you and hugs you and your stomach feels sore with guilt because you know they'll get over you, but you know they'll have to hurt first.

Once everyone has done the first dance, you see Lena and Stef duck inside and you quietly follow them into the kitchen and they are speaking in hushed voices, but they don't know you can hear them.

_How are we going to do this, Lena?_

_We talk to her in the morning, we remind her that we are doing it to help her. _

_She's going to be so mad, she's going to feel so betrayed. _

_She's going to get _better.

_But- _

_Stef, we need to do this tomorrow, no later. We've waited too long, she's only getting sicker. _

_I know. I'm scared. _

_Me, too. _

You feel sick to your stomach because you _know _they are talking about you. You _know _they are going to send you somewhere else, they've given up on you already.

_maybe this will make leaving a little easier. _

You sneak up to your room and sit down on the floor at the edge of your bed. _This is it, _you think. This is the last time you will sit in this room, the last time you will feel the safety of these walls surrounding you. You've hugged them for the last time; you've smiled at them for the last time. You've hurt Jude for the last time.

It's always needed to be this way and you only now realise that. Jude never needed you to survive; Jude needed to be alone to survive. All you do is hold his hand too tightly and keep him too close to your warpath and that has never been good. There had been good homes, only two of them before now, but if you hadn't been there, you know they would have taken Jude alone.

You have always seen it in people's eyes. That _too bad they come as a pair, the young boy is cute _look. They smile at him longer, they love him more. You don't blame them. You think that it's maybe because he never stayed with your parents long enough to get a cold heart, he's not rough around the edges like you. His blood doesn't flow thick and black like poison. Jude is kind hearted and warm and honest and he _feels _the things he is supposed to feel when you feel nothing at all.

You feel tears trickling down your cheeks and you make no move to wipe them away because everyone is in the yard dancing with their arms wrapped around each other and no one will notice your absence.

You plug earphones into your phone and turn on music.

'_and after the storm I run and run as the rains come and I look up, I look up. On my knees and out of luck, I look up.' _

There is a lump in your throat and, instead of swallowing it and moving on like you normally do, you let a tiny sob escape.

'_night has always pushed up day, you must know life to see decay but I won't rot, I won't rot, not this mind and not this heart, I won't rot.' _

You are sobbing, openly and sorely and like you've never sobbed in your entire life. Sobbing because you need to leave. Sobbing because you've hurt Jude. Sobbing because it's taken you this long to see what you've been doing to him. Sobbing because you're 93 and not 85 and you know it will take another week to get down to that number. You sob because you can't hold it back anymore.

'_There'll come a time, you'll see, with no more tears and love will not break your heart but dismiss your fears, get over your hill and see what you find there with grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.' _

You turn off the music and throw your phone across the room, angry at the lyrics you had once depended on for giving you false hope. You'd believed that things could get easier many years ago, but now you know that it just doesn't work like that for some people.

There is a shuffling at the door and you look up in shock to see Lena standing there in her ivory gown, eyes watering and mouth slightly open. She moves towards you slowly without saying a word and sits down quietly beside you.

You want to say something to her, something that will make her leave.

_Get out, now. _

_Leave me the hell alone. _

_Why do you always have to interrupt me when I'm like this?_

Instead, you shuffle so that you are in the foetal position and your head is in her lap and you cry even harder and she runs her fingers through your hair, without saying a single word.

This makes leaving ten times worse.

You leave at 3am, after everyone falls asleep.

**Please. Please let me know what you thought of that chapter? **

**Got a wee bit deep, wee bit emotional, but it was unavoidable. **

**This is the last Callie Centric chapter for a couple of chapters. **

_**review? **_


	14. Daughter

**A/N: Wow, words cant explain how much I love the reviews I have received over the course of the past few chapters. I would definitely say that reviews are a huge part of the motivation that I get for writing (as well as a nice playlist, always takes me a long way). I'm surprised that I even have the motivation to update anything today considering I've spent the past two weeks doing non stop university coursework without a single break. I'm exhausted, but somehow highly motivated. **

**Thank you thank you thank you for all the kind words you've all given me for this story, I hope that you still continue to enjoy it while we get down to the nitty gritty. The next few chapters are angsty and sad and necessary because you can't write about something like this without being completely honest about the problems that come with it. **

**So, here we go... **

**Enjoy and please please please review – I mean, it's not like I wont update it if you don't, but It's like the equivalent of a normal author being paid money, makes me all happy and giddy! **

**I'm really proud of this chapter...is that okay to say? **

**Have a wonderful day :) **

_Lena _

When you wake up, with your arms wrapped around a sleeping stef, you feel blissfully unaware of the world outside of your bedroom. You feel so calm that you think for a moment that you can fall back asleep, but Stef rolls over to face you and the gleam in her eyes makes you shiver.

You are Mrs Lena Adams-Foster. Married. You are married to the most wonderful woman on the planet.

You couldn't be happier.

After an hour of alone time with your new wife, you both sit up and put on some comfortable clothes and the smile doesn't leave your lips the entire time.

You've waited an entire lifetime for this, even when you didn't know it was what you really wanted, you were waiting. You can tell, by the calmness in Stefs voice, that she feels the same.

Like you never knew you were lost, but you somehow seem to have been found.

Then, quite suddenly, you think of Callie.

You think of the tears you had witnessed, of the way she fell asleep on your lap, of the impossible lightness of her body when you lifted her and placed her under the covers.

You think of Callie and guilt is like a kick in the stomach.

You look around at stef, who is putting on pyjamas and humming a happy sounding tune with a huge grin on her face and you feel a little bit more guilty.

Because this conversation can't wait.

And you're about to put a downer on your first day of being married.

"I'm worried about Callie." You say, and your voice is smaller than you'd wanted it to be, like a croak, like you're scared of how this might end.

Like you don't ever want to lose your daughter. Because she is your daughter.

Stef glances at you mid hum and her voice dies down, like the end of a song. Then she moves across the room and sits down next to you, clearly sensing that something is bothering you. And you know that it has been bothering her, too. You have seen it in her eyes for the past week, when she looks at Callie like the girl might break, when you find her close to tears leaning over the pile of dishes. She feels guilty, just as guilty as you, and there's nothing either of you can do about it.

Except maybe try to help your daughter.

_Because she is your daughter. _

Stef reaches over and her fingers trace your hands, she keeps her head ducked low and you catch a glimpse of the start of tears welling in her eyes, but she shakes it off and takes a raggedy breath. "I am, too." She whispers.

The truth floats heavy in the room for a few moments as you both stare into a void, thinking about the same thing and yet avoiding talking about the same thing. You think it's funny that you are now Mrs Lena Adams-Foster and you seemed to have inherited her inability to communicate when there is something pressing down on her mind.

The hardest part of this isn't that you've discovered that your daughter is sick. The hardest part isn't the fact that her body could continue to shut down if a plan of action isn't in place in the next day or two. That's not the hardest part of it.

The cold truth is that the hardest part of this whole thing...

It's that you're scared of your daughters demons.

You're scared of what they'll do to her, of what they'll take away from you.

You're scared you're daughter might end up ruining herself.

You're scared that it's already happened.

"I carried her to bed last night," you mumble, and you look at stef for a brief moment. "and I could feel her bones under her dress. She was so light, Stef. Lighter than Jude. She fainted yesterday afternoon and I forced her to eat a few pancakes and the fear in her face...she's sick."

Stef sighs and takes her gaze away from your hands to look into your eyes. "We'll fix this, love."

But neither of you can really believe it.

And neither of you say.

. . .

You decide that it might be best to talk to her right away. Despite the worry induced nausea bubbling at the pit of your stomach, you know this is something that cannot be put off. Not for another day.

Both of you sneak across the hall, hand in hand, and push the girls' door open quietly, to find Mariana still sound asleep and Callie's bed empty.

You think nothing of it. She's always up before everyone else these days, she barely ever sleeps these days in the first place, and so you expect her to be down in the kitchen, haunched over a cup of coffee.

But there's only Stef's mom.

And you look around, confused for a moment. It's 7am, it's a saturday morning, and Callie doesn't take guitar lessons anymore. Could she be out for a run?

Stef gives you a look that says it all, she's pissed at the girl for leaving the house, and she's worried about where she has gone.

"I'll call her." You say, grabbing your cell off of the table and dialling her number.

It rings out and then _Hello, you've reached Callie Jacob. I'm not available at the moment but if you leave a message I will try and get back to you. _

And the nausea gets worse. The guilt deepens.

Your hands shake.

Both of you walk back up to her room, hand in hand, as though it might bring some comfort.

Her drawers and wardrobe are empty, and there is a note hidden underneath her pillow that you see peaking out of the bottom.

_I'm sorry. _

Parents are supposed to know what to do in these situations. Call it maternal instinct, like your motherly brain chemistry should kick right into action. But, the real truth is that sometimes it's hard to really know how to deal with situations you never think you'll deal with.

Like when Jesus got pneumonia.

Like when Mariana sold drugs for her birth mother.

Like when Brandon fell off his bike and broke his arm in three places and passed out from the pain.

There's some things that shake you to the core.

This is something you'd never seen coming. The sickness brought on by her own demons in her own mind. The depression that's been drowning the whole family, even though none of you have really talked about it.

Callie is gone.

She's gone and you just don't understand why.

Because _she's your daughter. _

And she has been for a long time, even when you hadn't planned on it. The moment you looked into her tearful eyes when you'd first met her, you'd felt something deep inside you just as you had when you'd met Mariana and Jesus. You felt something good, and strong, and sort of scary.

People say you are mother to the child you hold in your stomach.

They don't tell you that it feels the same way when you meet a kid for the first time who's never really had a good family and a good home and they don't explain that, the second you wrap your arms around them and offer them a place to sleep, they become your family, too.

You couldn't imagine your life without these kids, even though there was a time that you had a life without these kids.

Was it ever really a life at all?

. . .

"When was the last time any of you seen her?"

Everyone looks around the table at each other, looking for answers in each others eyes, and you know that it takes everyone by surprise as much as it did you and Stef.

They're all scared.

Jude is staring down at the floor, he hasn't said a word since you'd brought them all down to tell them.

Stef worries that she will need to tell Callie's parole officer.

Everyone worries that Callie might get sicker.

You hate it, but you worry that you might not ever see her again.

Jude looks terrified.

"Jude? Sweetie? It's going to be okay." And you know that it might be a lie, just hopeful wishing.

He looks up at you and you hate the tears in his eyes.

"what if she doesn't come back?" He asks.

Your heart breaks.

"She will, honey."

You say it because you want to believe it.

"We'll get her back, baby."

You say it because she is your daughter.

And you need to see her again.


	15. Sister

**I'm worried that maybe I'm dragging this story on, like the plot is being stretched a little too thin? I always feel as though i'm either getting heaps of reviews, or just a few of them, either way, I try not to become to focused on what the number is sitting at. I write because I love writing, and I enjoy writing this specific plot because it's something I hold close to my heart, and I also write because I love that people like my stuff. The thing is, I sometimes can't help but notice when I only get a quarter of the reviews I usually get, because it makes me worry that I'm doing something wrong and, honestly, I'd like to hear some opinions. Although, admittedly, negative reviews can sometimes upset me a little, I think they're also prettty good to receive, so that I know which areas of the story might need changing and fixing. I like hearing what you want to happen, what you don't like about what's happening, things like that. **

**(However, I do not like to hear things that are written specifically to make me hurt, so please keep that in mind. I'm the type of person who takes certain things to heart) **

**Enough of my ranting, I'm sure there aren't many people who actually read these notes. **

**Have a great day :) **

…

_Mariana _

_**Day Two **_

When you met Callie, you didn't like her.

Now, when you think back on it, you realise that you'd made a huge error in judgement. You aren't sure what it was that made you feel the way you did, but you felt it nonetheless. Maybe you were worried that she was a threat, because you are and always have been mama and moms little girl.

But then you got to know her, and then she became your sister. Even though it's still not legal, it doesn't make it any less of a fact.

You've always wanted a sister, _always_. Lexi came close enough, you spent most of your childhood referring to her as your triplet and you'd always laugh for hours when someone actually believed you. But you'd always wanted a _real _sister. Someone you could confide in, and argue with, and share make up with. You've always wanted to be a sister, to _have _a sister.

Now your sister is gone.

It's been two days, and you've never seen mama cry this much, or mom pace this much. Everyone Is tired and grumpy and worried and you just want her to come back. You can't help but wonder if you could have prevented this from happening. After all, you share a room with her. You are the one who heard her waking up at the crack of dawn to do god knows what, and all you'd done was roll over and go back to sleep. You were the one who, three nights ago, was awoken to the sound of muffled crying and had chosen not to say a word about it.

If you'd woken up and talked to her, would she be sitting across from you right now?

You also feel sort of mad. You hate that you do, but you do. She left and now your mama is in tears and your mom is pacing the kitchen, ranting on the phone to a police officer about how he's being unhelpful. You're mad because she could have asked for help,

She _should _have asked for help.

But, then again, shouldn't someone have noticed it sooner?

You understand though. It's hard to become part of a family, it's hard to accept the things they offer you, and it's _especially _hard to ask for things.

You've been there before

...

"_Mariana, honey, would you like a juice box?" _

_You've been in their house for two days now, and you still haven't said a word. Jesus seems to be settling in easier, but you just don't feel comfortable. _

_You shake your head and Lena picks you up and sits you down on the table. "Cat got your tongue?" _

_You shake your head again. _

_You can hear Jesus and Stef playing ball in the garden and you feel your bottom lip quiver. _

"_Honey, what's wrong?" _

_You shake your head and wipe your tears away with your hands balled into fists. _

"_Mariana, sweetheart, if you need anything you can ask me or Stef and we will get it for you, okay? _Anything."

_You look down at your feet and avoid her stare. She's much kinder looking than the other family you were with before. Both of them are. _

"_C-can...can I have an apple?" You ask. Testing. You want to see if she's telling the truth. _

_And she pulls out red and green apples so that you can decide._

_..._

You remember how difficult it was just to ask for something as small as an apple, and how it went on like that for a long time. It would take you hours to build up the courage to say you were thirsty and, when you were sick, you'd hide away in your room and pretend like you were busy until it got so bad that you _had _to tell them.

Everyone has different coping mechanisms.

Jesus acts out, shouts, complains, fights. Brandon plays piano. Mama listens to music, Mom watches sports.

Callie runs away.

Callie stops eating.

Callie gives up.

You want to find her, hug her, and tell her that it'll be okay, that you're all here to help her, that she's not getting sent away.

But it's been two days and, yesterday, she left Wyatt alone at a motel and no one knows where she is.

"Mama?"

You always come to mama when you're scared or sad or sick. You love how she comforts you, how she wraps her arms around you, how she hums to you.

You _always _come to mama for comfort.

...

"_L-Lena?" You whisper, and you shake her shoulder. _

_She opens one eye and stares at you for a moment, confused, and then she opens the other eye. "Mariana, honey, what's wrong?" _

"_I feel sick." You mumble._

_She reaches out her hand and places it on your forehead, the coolness of her skin feels good. _

"_You're a little warm." she mumbles, and she sits up, sliding her feet into a pair of slippers. "Let's go downstairs and get you some medicine so that we don't wake m-stef ." _

_You nod and warily take her hand so that she can lead you down to the quiet kitchen and she sits you down at the table. _

_You watch as she pours medicine into a spoon and brings it to your lips, smiling. _

"_I don't like that stuff." you mumble. _

"_It'll make you feel better, baby." she hums. _

_You sigh and take the medicine and she wraps her arms around you softly. "Good girl." _

"_Thank you...mama."_

...

You find her sitting in the living room with her legs crossed and her eyes closed and it reminds you of the time Jesus got Pneumonia, she'd always be meditating, trying to rid herself of any negative thoughts.

She opens one eye and pats the empty space next to her.

Once you are sitting, and after she takes a few calming breaths, she speaks. "You okay, miss thing?"

You sigh. "I'm scared."

"Callie is going to be okay." She says, matter-of-factly, or as close to it as she can get.

You nod your head. "Yeah, I mean...she's a pretty tough girl, but...what if...what if she _isn't_?"

At this, she opens her eyes and turns to face you. "Callie is a big girl, Hon. She's spent most of her life having to fend for herself, and I have no idea, really, how this is going to play out. I just have faith in her. I think that, once Callie has figured out why she's been feeling the way she's been feeling, she'll call us. I think we need to wait."

"So you think we should just _wait_?" You ask, and you're shocked. Your moms always run after you kids when you need it. They always search for you when you're lost. You've never heard them suggest that it might just be best to _wait. _

"I think that Callie is having a hard time and she needs us, but I don't think she knows that yet. And, no, we can't _just wait_. Mom and I are going to be out looking for her every day, as well as the police."

You nod your head. "She'll come home?" You ask.

Your mama nods her head. "She'll come home."

But you can hear the tiniest hint of doubt in her voice.

And it scares you.


	16. The Fear

**A/N: The reviews I have been receiving for this story have been wonderful. Thank you thank you thank you. **

**So, I have a habit of naming all of my stories after songs, this one included. The song that inspired this story is called 'Hopeless Wanderer' by Mumford & Sons and I just think it fits so perfectly with the Callie that i've been writing and the struggle she has with accepting what the Fosters are offering her. From here on out, I'll be including little bits from the song at the end of each chapter, It's supposed to sort of tell the story along with my writing. **

**Ps. If you have never listened to Mumford & Sons, I think you should definitely go and do it now. I recommend _After the storm, Hopeless Wanderer, Ghosts that we knew, Sigh no more (because I literally have this song tattoed to my body) White blank page and Timshel (to name a few). They are a wonderful band, and their lyrics are just unexplainably brilliant. _**

_**Also, sorry for the short chapter. I couldn't really add to it because it just sits better the way it is. Sometimes its better to keep things short. I'll update soon to make up for it. I do try to update regularly but I write when I have the inspiration and if I rush it then the chapters will be awful. **_

_**Have a great day! **_

You're pacing again. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. You find yourself chewing at the skin on your thumb, mind racing at a million miles per hour.

"Stef, stop that, you're making me feel dizzy."

You hadn't even realised that someone was in the room with you, not with the insistent _where is she, what is she doing, I hope she's okay_ whirling around in your head. Every other thought seems to have been put on hold over the past few days.

All you can think about is Callie.

You turn to face Lena, who is sitting on the edge of the bed with her laptop on her knee and a tired frown on her face, one that hasn't disappeared once in the past three days.

You sigh and fold your arms around yourself, squeezing as though to give yourself some sort of comfort.

"It's been _three days, _Lena." you say, and your voice comes out frantic and exhausted.

Lena closes over the laptop and looks at you closely for a moment. "I know, honey. I know and...I get that you're worried, but there's nothing we can do right now..."

"We could be out there looking for her."

The room goes silent for a moment and you realise that, while it wasn't your aim, your words had come across mad, accusing.

Lena shakes her head. "Don't you think that's what I want to be doing? Don't you think I'm scared, too? Every single time the phone rings my heart stops because I'm terrified someone is phoning to say that they've found her...that she's not..." She doesn't finish her sentence, it trails off on the tip of her tongue, not daring to be heard.

But you know what she's thinking.

And, suddenly, you're angry.

Not at Lena. At everything.

You're angry because Callie lost both of her parents. The parents that were supposed to love her, raise her, teach her. You're angry because she was tossed from bad home to bad home and, every time she was tossed again, they blamed it on _her_. You're angry because Callie never came to you, even when you told her, time and time again, that you'd give her _anything _she needs to make her feel better. You're angry because people taught Callie that she doesn't deserve to be loved, that she doesn't deserve to be _happy_.

You're angry at Callie because she stopped eating, she stopped caring for herself, she ran away.

You're angry because Callie Jacob has the most wonderful smile in the entire planet, one of the most beautiful laughs you've ever heard, she's protective and fearless and beautiful and _extraordinary _and she can't see that when she looks at herself.

And you

just

don't

understand.

.

"_Look, can you just make sure that Jude goes somewhere safe?" _

"_You're not disposable, Callie. You're not worthless."_

_._

You're angry because you couldn't save her.

You feel as though it might be too late now.

"Why couldn't she have just _told _us? Why couldn't she just accept that we...that we love her. That she's our baby?" You realise that you're shouting. That it's the middle of the night and your hands are waving in the air and you're shouting and you might wake everyone up.

Lena stands up and you notice the tears streaming down her face, but you can't stop yourself.

"Are we just bad parents?" You ask. "How on earth could we be so blind?"

"She was hiding it, Stef."

"That doesn't matter, Lena. That doesn't matter because it's our Job to see these things. It's our Job to help them when they can't help themselves."

Lena shakes her head. "It's not that easy and you know it."

"How can you be so calm?" You shout. "She's out there alone, with no money and no phone and she's probably not eaten in days...How the _fuck _could we be so _stupid_?"

"I'm _not _calm." Lena shouts. And you stop pacing, you stare at her. Lena doesn't shout.

"I've barely slept a wink in days, Stef. I can't concentrate on _anything_. I'm not _calm_, I'm _petrified._"

"We fucked up." you mumble, and you shake your head. "We _really _fucked up."

"We made a mistake, Stef. But we didn't mess it up. _Every _parent makes mistakes. How could we have helped her? She's so damn stubborn."

You look down at your shaking hands, and then back up at your wife. And the anger is still there, but you feel it slowly dissipating with every raggedy breath you take.

"God, I would have given her _anything _if I knew it would have made her feel better. I just...I don't understand why she couldn't have just accepted that. I..." You take a shuddering breath and let out a small sob that's been building up in your chest for the past few days. "I just want our baby to come back." You whisper.

And Lena's arms are surrounding you.

Like a safety blanket, like a warm bath, like a soothing song.

Like it's not too late.

You're sobbing into her chest, and her arms are wrapping around you, trying to fill out all of the empty spaces, trying to make everything disappear.

You realise that you are both sitting in the middle of the floor, and your sobs are gone now, you're sniffing and taking deep breaths and Lena is running her hands through your hair, placing soft kisses on your head, on your cheeks, on your hands.

Anything to make you feel okay.

"She'll be okay." She whispers it into your hair, after everything has stopped. "She'll come back, and we'll hug her, and we'll make her better. Okay?"

You nod your head and the last of the anger fizzes away. "Okay."

_so when your hope's on fire, but you know your desire, don't hold a glass over the flame, don't let your heart grow cold. I will call you by name, I will share your road. _


	17. Guilt

Jude

"_I want to go to the moon." _

_You're six years old and you're laying out in the back yard on your back, next to your sister, staring up at the stars and she turns to face you. _

"_Yeah?" _

"_Yeah. Do you think they'll ever build rocket ships that take _anyone _up there?" _

_Callie smiles and shrugs her shoulders. "Or you could be an astronaut and orbiting up there could be your job." _

_You laugh. "I could never be an astronaut." _

_But Callie grips your hand and squeezes it. "You can be _anything _you want to be. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise." _

_You realise that Callie would tuck the entire universe into your pocket if she could. _

…

You miss your sister.

One day turns into two. Three. Four.

Then she's been gone for seven whole days.

Everyone is so worried, and Lena keeps promising you that it'll be okay, that they're doing _everything _they can.

But what she doesn't know is that this was _your _fault.

Guilt eats away at your gut like a parasite. You haven't slept properly since the night before the wedding and you don't think you'll ever sleep properly again until your sister is there to tuck you in.

It's always been both of you against the world.

Against _all _of the worlds that you created to forget about the pain.

.

_What do you want to be today?'_

_'A dragon.'_

_'A dragon? One that breathes fire?"'_

_'Yeah. One that breathes fire so he can save the world.'_

_'A good dragon?'_

_'A good dragon.'_

_._

You've been batman and robin, Knights, dinosaurs, Scientists, Witches and warlocks.

And now it's just you.

And then it's just her.

And you don't know how to do it alone.

And you wonder if _she _knows how to do it alone.

And you feel guilty because it's _your _fault.

You find Brandon perched over his piano, staring into space and you sit down next to him with a tired sigh. He looks at you for a moment and you keep your gaze fixed on your hands, thinking that maybe it's about time that you admit what you've done.

"You okay, bud?" He asks.

Bud is your sisters name for you.

Guilt makes tears appear in your eyes.

"It's my fault." You whisper. "She ran away because of me."

Brandon wraps his arm around you and shakes his head. "What are you talking about, Jude?"

You take a shaky breath and close your eyes. "I upset her. The night of the wedding, I caught her throwing up and I...I called her selfish. I told her that she ruins things for me...for _us. _Then, she left. It's my fault."

He pulls you in for a hug and there are tears dripping down your cheeks.

"Jude, it's not your fault. Okay? Callie ran away because she was scared. But she'll be okay, right? She'll come back. We'll all help to make her feel okay again and then you'll have your big sister back."

You hope that he's telling the truth.

Because you don't know how to be in a world without Callie.

.

_'Callie, it's snowing!' _

_You're jumping up and down in front of the window, already wearing your snow boots and Jacket. She appears around the corner with her own coat and shoes in her hand and a huge grin on her face. _

_'Well, let's go build a snowman then, little guy!' _

_._

Callie has been carrying you on her shoulders for as long as you can remember. She taught you how to escape when things got too hard, she taught you how to use your imagination - be a dragon, be a knight in shining armour, be a king, be _anything that you want to be_. When you were a kid, she showed you the most magical adventures and, now, you realise why she did it.

If you were flying through the air breathing orange flames, then you weren't in the dull back yard of an abusive foster home.

How do you thank her for that?

For the adventures, for the laughs, for the stories upon stories upon stories. She taught you to read, she showed you the world of Hogwarts, Moby dick, Lord of the Rings. She showed you a whole new world when your world showed you absolutely nothing.

And the entire time you were blind to the things that she had to endure.

Will you ever be able to thank her for that?

Will she ever come back to you?

.

_'Callie, are you awake?' _

_'Yeah.' _

_'Never leave me, okay?' _

_'never.' _

_. _

The call comes at 3am. Lena is the one who wakes you up, telling you that Callie called, that Stef is on her way to pick her up. She says that you need to get dressed because you have to travel to a hospital that's in another state.

Day seven.

Callie calls home.

Callie is

She's

safe?

.

_'I'm glad that you're my big sister.' _

_'you are?' _

_'You always fight the bad guys for me.' _

_'and I always will.' _


	18. oblivion

**A/N: A lot of people have been eager to see Callie back in the story, don't worry it's finally time! We're sort of hopping back in time a little so that I can clarify whats been happening with Callie while she's been gone. It'll probably be clear when you're reading it, but just so you know, the italic sections are dreams and not flashbacks like they usually are. **

**Trigger warning for this chapter as it sort of discusses suicidal thoughts. **

**Again, thank you endlessly for your wonderful reviews. **

**Have a wonderful day :) **

You've always wondered how people do it so easily.

How they get up and they get dressed and they do the things they do and then just go back to sleep and repeat it the next day. Life shouldn't be so repetitive, should it?

You grew up wanting to do so much more, _be _so much more, and you taught Jude to want the same. But time and heartache made you see that you're just not that lucky and you never will be. If you can't be the person you want to be, live the life you want, then you are willing to settle for nothing at all.

Nothing.

You think of the word, of the way it would feel if you held It in your hands. Like a new kind of lightness, like water rather than the heavy rocks you've been trudging along with your entire life. You want to find the meaning of _nothing, _so that you can understand something you've spent some time recently eagerly wanting to experience. You've felt numb before, but feeling numb is still...

_feeling. _

You want to feel absolutely nothing. Obsolete. Finished. _Done. _

What would it be like to have absolutely no feelings, no senses, no anything? How would it feel to fall into oblivion, with no sounds and no thoughts?

An infinity of blackness.

At first, it was only a thought that lingered momentarily in the back of your mind. But then it came more often, and then it was nagging and persistent and, recently, it just wont leave you. That wanting, that eagerness, that _need_. You think about it every day and you wonder if that's normal. People talk about suicide like it's an act of selfishness, but you don't see it that way. If you're gone, then people can hurt for a while and then move on. And once they've gotten past the pain, they get to live life without your troubles, your pains, your burden. People like you might be destined to fade in the same way that people like Jude are destined to shine bright like the sun.

You've just been too scared to take the final step. Like you've been hoping that maybe things will get easier, but you know that they won't...not right away, anyway.

Right here, in the middle of the night, walking down a road completely alone, you feel an overwhelming sense of impending..._nothing_.

The void.

Oblivion.

It's been three days and you need to sleep and you probably need to eat, but that doesn't seem like the most important thing. You can see a lit up sign down the road and you think of a bed and a pillow and your mind goes fuzzy with the overwhelming need to sleep.

But you have no money.

You keep walking, your feet aching and your legs shaking, until you arrive at the beat up motel on the side of the room with the half lit flickering sign and the boarded up rooms and you hope that maybe you can figure out a way to get into one of the rooms without any money. You wander around the building, thinking of the people inside of the rooms. Who would want to stay in a place like this in the middle of nowhere?

You find a boarded up room around the back, doors and windows covered with damp slates of wood, and you manage to find a way in.

You just need to sleep. Just for a while.

The bed is old, and there are no blankets or lights, but it's not exactly the worst situation you've ever been in. You pull a sleeping bag out of your bag and curl up inside of it on the beaten up mattress and you close your eyes. Just for a while. Just one night.

"_It's good to see you again." You hear her voice before you see her. _

_Your mother. _

_You notice that you are sitting in the middle of a field that stretches out for endless miles in front of you, coated in white orchids that make it look similar to snow that has just fallen. You look at your mom and smile. _

"_I didn't think I'd see you again." You say. _

"_As much as it pains me to say it, I was hoping that we wouldn't have to see each other again." _

_You sigh and look out at the dusting of white crossing the length of about 10 football pitches. It's endless, beautiful. "Well, unfortunately you brought a less than sane child into the world." _

"_Your moms are worried." _

"_Foster moms." _

_You sit in silence for a moment, looking up at your mother as she picks at the orchids and ties each stem together until she has formed a circle of white flowers. She places it on your head and smiles. _

"_So why are you doing it?" She asks, craning her head to look directly into your eyes. _

"_Doing what?" _

"_Starving yourself." She mumbles, and it makes you feel weird and uncomfortable. _

"_Do we have to talk about this? Can't I just enjoy having you here?" You pick up a flower and pick off the petals one by one. **Sane, insane, sane insane. **_

_She mimics your actions and picks a flower for herself. Her voice is barely above a whisper when she speaks as she tears off the leaves. "She wants to live, she wants to die, she wants to live, she wants to die." _

_and then she gets to the last petal. "She wants to live." _

_She smiles at you. _

"_It's more complicated than they think it is." You mumble. _

"_I know that, but you never tell them how you're feeling…how are they supposed to know what's going on?" _

"_Why does there have to be a reason?" You ask. "Why can't I do what I want with my own body without this crap?" _

_She sighs and lays back on the grass. You follow her. "Because, if you keep doing this, my sweet thing, there won't be a Callie Jacob left in this world and Lena and Stef don't want that. _No one _wants that." _

_._

You open your eyes and notice through a crack in the wood that it seems to have gotten light out, maybe you should get up and keep moving, go somewhere else thats safer and warmer, but you're so tired.

You'll just shut your eyes. Just for a moment.

Just so you can say goodbye to your mother.

.

_You're back in the field again, exactly where you left off. You turn to face your mother and you notice that she looks more alive now than she did when she was..well, alive. "Would it be so bad?" you ask. _

"_What?" _

"_A life without me? A world without Callie Jacob?" _

_There is a flash of light and you are standing outside the Fosters house with your mom by your side, looking into a window. You an see Lena sitting in the kitchen, her eyes staring tiredly out at the back yard. _

"_Whats wrong with her?" You ask. _

_You notice that she is wearing all black, that there are tear tracks down her face. Mariana walks into the kitchen, head to toe in black also. _

"_Who died?" You ask. Your mom looks at you seriously for a moment before gesturing with her head towards the window and urging you to pay attention. _

"_Mama, don't cry." Mariana says, sitting down next to her and wrapping her arms around her tightly. "Don't cry." _

_Lena pats Mariana's back and kisses the side of her head before standing up. "It's going to be a long day." _

"_I know." Mariana looks at Lena with tears in her eyes before wiping them away quickly. "I hate this." _

"_Me, too, honey." She runs her hands through Marianas hair for a moment before taking a deep breath and collecting herself. "Did you get Jude sorted?" _

_Mariana nods. "Yeah." _

"_How's he holding up?" _

_Mariana shrugs her shoulders and sighs sadly, looking at the ground. "Still not talking." _

_You look at your mom and shake your head. "Mom what's happening? What's going on?" She places her hand on your shoulder and there is another flash, you end up somewhere else. _

_A Grave. _

_**Callie Jacob. Daughter. Sister. Biggest heart in the whole world. 1997-2014 **_

_**.**_

It's so dark that you can't tell if your eyes are open or shut. If it's night time or daytime. If it's wednesday or Sunday. You don't really know where you are, you can't think of how you got here.

All you know is that you are tired.

More tired than you've ever felt in your life. Like your limbs are being weighed down, your eyelids are made of cement.

You want to get up, keep going, be strong.

But you just don't have the energy and you think that, maybe, if you just shut your eyes

just for a while

then your mum will tell you how to li-

.

"_I don't want to see any more." You shout. _

_Its dark, and you can't see her anywhere, you can't see anything. But you know that she's there. You know that she's right in front of you. _

"_Did you hear me? I don't want to see this stuff. Stop showing me..._please_." _

_You feel a hand on your shoulder. And then a flash. _

_And then you are sitting in a church, right beside Jude. There are tear tracks down his cheeks, and you notice that his hand is intertwined with Marianas. That they're all there. That they're all crying. _

"_Jude." You say. He doesn't look up. "Jude, stop ignoring me. C'mon bud!" _

_He doesn't even blink. _

_There is a sound, like someone clearing their throat, and you look up to find a fragile looking Stef standing at the front of the room. _

_And then you see the coffin. The picture of the family. _

_The picture of you. _

"_I never thought that I'd have to write a Eulogy for one of my children. I prayed my whole life that I'd never have to do this." Stef's voice is different than it was when you last heard it. It sounds like too much crying, too much coffee, not enough sleep. "But here we are." _

_You hear a few sniffles and you scan the room. There aren't many people here, but everyone that you love, everyone that you care for, is red faced and crying. _

_You always wondered if anyone would care. _

"_Callie was a wonderful girl. From the moment I met her and gave her a spot to sleep on on the couch, I saw myself in her. She was so held back when we first crossed paths. I remember when my wife brought her home and she had these big protective barriers towered high around her. I thought to myself...who made her feel as though she has to do that? It didn't stop me from falling in love with her, though." She stops for a moment and looks down at Lena, a new batch of tears falling down her cheeks. _

"_They say that you fall in love with your child the moment you hold them in your arms. They say that it is the most wonderful feeling to hold a child inside of you. The thing is...I love all my kids the same. Whether they're adopted or biological, they're still my kids. It's an odd feeling, knowing that a kid is _your _kid, even when they're sixteen years old and the first words you hear come from their mouth are 'so you're dykes?'" There is an awkward giggle in the room and Lena is smiling. _

_You remember the anger in their faces. The offence. _

_You remember feeling guilty about it for months after you said it. _

"_Callie made mistakes, too. Whether that was skipping school and going downtown to a house where a man has a gun, or saying things she really shouldn't have said...but it didn't make the affection my wife and I had for any less. Every mistake she made, every wrong turn she took, was just something that we were there to help fix." _

_She takes a shuddering breath and shakes her head. "And we made mistakes too. A lot of them. Big ones. I only hope that Callie knows, wherever she is, that we love her. That we will _always _love her. The moment I saw those big brown eyes, she was part of me. Callie Jacob was a wonderful girl. I miss her every second of every minute of every day. I feel this loss deeper than any loss i've ever felt. I loved everything about her. I loved her mistakes, and her accomplishments. I loved her music, her laugh, her smile. She had so much wisdom, so much...imagination." _

_She looks down at her hands and goes silent for a few seconds. _

"_Callie Jacob was my daughter, and she was a wonderful daughter. Miss you, honey." _

_You turn to face your mother, who is sitting in the row behind you with sad tears rolling down her cheeks. "Make it stop." You demand. "Make it stop. _Please._" _

"_You want to live." She whispers. _

When you open your eyes, the firs thing you notice is the searing pain in your head, which you put down to dehydration. You notice that it's just as dark as it was the last time you opened your eyes and you blink your eyes rapidly, trying to prove to yourself that you are, infact, awake.

You push yourself up from the bed and hold onto the furniture and the walls as you make your way through the suffocating darkness. Your legs are shaking, your body is aching and, although you can't quite see anything, you can tell that you are dizzy.

You need to make it to a phone right away if you want them to come in time.

You manage to find one around the front of the motel and, although it's covered in cobwebs and dust, you pick up the receiver and push in one of your last quarters.

She picks up on the third ring.

"Hello." a sleepy voice greets you.

You take a shaky breath and prepare yourself. You're afraid of what she might say, of how she might be feeling. Surely, they're angry. Surely, they've been at least a little worried.

Surely, they're never going to forgive you.

"S-stef?" you breathe.

"Callie? Is that you?" She almost shouts it, and you can tell that she has immediately woken up.

"It's me."

You aren't sure what to say. What _can _you say to someone after you've hurt them so deeply? How do you apologise for packing up and running away when all they've done is offer you help?

"Callie, Where are you? Are you okay?" She asks quickly, and you can hear her mumbling to someone in the background, you hear a zipper like she's already out of bed and getting ready to come get you.

To come and save you.

"I'm...it's a motel...Sunnyvale motel? I d-don't know where it is, but if you g-google it...it took a few hours to drive here from where I was with Wyatt."

You hear a door slamming and an engine revving and then shuffling and then her voice again. "Okay, I've got it...I know where you are. Are you hurt?"

You don't speak.

You can't admit that you feel as though the last of the energy inside of you is being used to make this call.

You don't want to tell her that you don't think that you have enough time.

"Just...hurry, okay?"

"I'm on my way, Love. And Callie?"

You take a shaky breath and lean heavier against the phone booth. "Yeah?"

"It's going to be okay."

And, for the first time, you hope that maybe it will.

If you could just hold on. Just for a while.

_Hold me fast, hold me fast 'cause I'm a hopeless wanderer. _


	19. Willow Tree

**A/N: I am **_**sooooo **_**sorry about the delay in updates! I have just been so busy and writers block is a pain in the ass. I've had parts of this chapter written for a long time, but I just kept staring at them and trying to decide whether or not they were actually worth posting…**

**I got super carried away with this chapter, so it's pretty long. Hopefully it makes up for the break in updates. **

**After this, there will only be another four/five chapters (crazy, I have a huge habit of not actually completing stories so this is a special one) **

**Thank you SO much for the reviews & Have a great day! **

_Callie Jacob _

The willow tree bends, but does not break.

You learned this when you were young and it stayed with you, always a fact in the back of your mind for a time when you might need one the most. You've always wondered when this information would be necessary for conversation, or an answer to a test. The true meaning of it only comes to mind now, over ten years down the line.

The willow tree bends, but it does not break. Not ever. Not when the wind is hitting hard against its branches at over 100mph. Not during hurricanes, or monsoons, or earthquakes. The willow tree bends, but the only time that a willow tree breaks, is when a human touches it with their chainsaws.

You wish that you could be a willow tree. You wish that you could bend without breaking. You wish that you could move swiftly along with all of the bad people, all of the bad luck, all of the bad accidents that have come in your life.

But even without the chainsaws, even without the greedy hands reaching out for clumps of useless old wood that they do not intend on caring for, you still manage to come apart.

They tell you that you have not broken. They tell you that you are still here, still whole, still alive.

The first branch tore off when your mother died. Much like a shatter in a piece of glass, it was not a clean break. The edges of the break grew with time, crawling out of the crack and getting wider, like a spiders web.

Then they told you that it was okay, and they stuck a band aid over the break like everything might be better now. Like you might find family now, like there was a home waiting.

The second branch broke off when you realised that foster parents are mostly just money seekers. It took with it another two branches, the big ones with the most leaves.

One by one, the branches broke. One for the abusive home when you were ten, one for Liam, ten for disappointing Jude, one for disappointing yourself, three for disappointing the fosters.

Now, it's just the trunk of the tree stripped bare, bending so far that cracks are appearing big and wide and angry.

You are not a willow tree.

The wind calms down at 6:43am, Saturday the 8th of March, 2014.

You hang up the phone on the wall and the last of the energy drains from your body. The small task of moving from phone to steps is enough to make your heart race like like a cheetah. You move slowly, your mind like mush.

Turn around. Pick up bag. Walk slowly. Sit down.

It takes a month to step away from the booth. A year to pick up your bag.

Stefs voice sounded like home. Like stringy mac and cheese and Mozart on the piano. Like helping Jude write fractions, and watching Mariana paint her fingernails sparkling silver. Stefs voice sounds like _be safe _and _we love you_.

But Stef's voice makes you let go. Slowly, as your heart skips beats, and your insides turn to dust, you feel everything stripping away. You think of a soft smile, and a warm hug, and a forgiving kiss. You think of home, and your breaths fall into a pattern of calmness.

Your heart beats slow.

You realise that it is too late.

When you pictured death, you pictured calm: A euphoric light, reaching out from the distance and welcoming you to eternal peace. You pictured feeling relaxed, ready, and happy.

Instead, the calm feeling of falling into a long sleep is replaced by the terror of knowing that you've let them all down.

That you've let _yourself _down.

You are Callie Jacob: A little girl in a big scary world that seems to have gotten lost along the way. You are Callie Jacob and people throw compasses at you like confetti on a wedding day, willing you to find your way back to them, and you toss them overboard on your storm-struck ship.

They scream your name, they tell you that it's okay, that they care about you, that they will carry you if that is what you need, and you tell them that you are Callie Jacob and you were put on this earth to fight alone.

But now, you want your mothers. All of them. You want your mothers and you want your siblings and you want home.

Your head begins to hurt, and you feel lightheaded, and then there is a sudden silence and a bright white light. A hand on your shoulder.

"_It's over?" you ask, and she reaches out and takes your hand. _

_Her skin is glowing from the light surrounding you, she is wearing a long flowing white gown and you can't help but think that she looks like an angel. She shakes her head and a tear falls from her eye. _

"_It's not over, baby. You're too young." _

_You hear a hint of desperation in her voice and you wonder if it is possible for a ghost to mourn the living. You wonder if she has missed you, all of these years alone in limbo. You wonder why it hurts her to see you die when it means that you can finally be together. _

"_I'm dead." You whisper. _

_You close your eyes and feel yourself watching a scene play out before your eyes. The slamming of a car door followed by a panicked scream. _

_You watch as Stef runs towards your body, curled up on the corner of the steps. She falls down at your side and shouts your name over and over again like a plea. _

"_Callie, baby, you have to wake up for me. Wake up for me, please love." _

_She's crying, screaming, moving you so that you are lying on the ground. Then she listens for breath and the panicking worsens. "NO! Baby, it's mom, it's me…please breathe for me, please. Come on." _

"_No." your mother says forcefully. "No, it's not too late." _

_You look into her eyes and watch the crystal clear tears roll from her eyes and down her rosy pink cheeks. "What do you mean?" _

"_You have to get back to them." _

"_How?"_

_She reaches out and grazes your cheek with her ice cold hand and you close your eyes. "Think about them. Think about your future with them. Think about your favourite memory with them, about your future birthdays to come and Jude's, too. Think about their faces, their smiles, their laughs. Think about it hard, about how much you want to see it again. Think about how you want to live, breathe, eat, smile, laugh. Think about it all." _

_You close your eyes and you picture Jude laughing at one of Jesus' jokes. You picture your moms hugging each other, Brandon playing piano, Mariana smiling. You picture your birthday, when they gave you the camera, your next birthday with a chocolate cake and candles and everyone singing. You picture Jude graduating, you picture signing the adoption papers, you picture everything that you want to experience. Everything you've been pushing away. _

_You smile. _

"_and now you fight." She whispers, and kisses your cheek._

When you open your eyes, you are staring at the bright lights of a hospital room.

For a moment, you are completely unaware of everything that has happened in your life until this point. For a split second, you feel like you might be 6 years old and your mom might be alive and you might not be in this hospital room with, what feels like, a feeding tube in your nose.

When the calm feeling goes away and pieces of your life fall back into place, you realise that this might be your second chance. You've heard about getting a new lease on life, people talk about how they wake up from near-death experiences feeling as though everything is brand new, like a heavy rain midway through a horribly hot summer.

But, when all of the feelings come back, you realise that this new lease will bring a terribly tough journey. It's not over, it might never be over, but at least you are willing to try. That's a start, right?

There is a mythological creature with wings so big that it can soar through the sky smoothly and sharply, its feathers are a fiery fierce red, its eyes are similar to a dragons. This mythological creature, the phoenix, also harnesses the ability to rise from its own ashes.

Reborn. Stronger than before. Fiery red, ready for the new world that it has been offered.

You'd read about it once in a fantasy book in a library that you used to seek comfort in. You remember thinking that, if you could be _any _mythological creature, this would be it.

You are not a willow tree.

You wish you could be a phoenix.

A nurse tells you that you've been in the hospital for six days, and that they've kept you in a medically induced coma in order to bring up all of your numbers, whatever that means. She says that you had low blood sugar, low heart rhythm, low potassium, low iron – low _everything_. She also tells you that your heart stopped twice; once, while you were waiting on Stef to come on the steps, and another time in the ambulance on the way here. She says that you are a very lucky girl, that you would have died had you stayed in that motel for one more night.

You don't tell her that your mother was the one who saved you.

Late in the afternoon, on the day that you wake up, a psychologist comes into your room and asks you a barrage of questions relating to food and how you view yourself physically and mentally. After an hour of talking, she leaves and a nurse takes her place. The nurse changes your IV bag, checks your stats and tells you that the feeding tube will be removed once your numbers come up a little more. After that, she says, it'll all be up to you.

The day is jam packed with psychologists, nurses, doctors, nutritionists, and strange glances, but not once does any of the fosters show up to see you.

Are they mad? Probably. Are they upset? Probably. Have they given up on you?

_Hopefully not. _

At 7pm, the on call nurse comes in to check your vitals again and wake you up to ask you how you are feeling. She sits down on the chair next to your bed and writes a few things down on your chart before sitting it down on the bed and smiling at you.

"How are you feeling tonight?"

You shrug and keep your focus directed towards the opposite side of the room.

"Any headaches? Nausea?"

You shake your head, although it's not entirely the truth. You just want to be left alone for a while to think things through, instead of being stuck here with a hundred different medical professionals who think it's okay to poke and prod and ask personal questions.

"Okay, good. Your moms asked us to let them know every few hours how things are going so these questions are mandatory."

Your heart skips a beat at the word moms, at the thought that maybe they do still care enough to at least want to know how you are doing. There is a question on the tip of your tongue, but you are too scared to say the words, and you figure the nurse must pick up on it because she takes your hand gently and squeezes it.

"We pretty much had to force them to go home. Stubborn lot, they are. For the first three days they wouldn't leave your bedside, but they looked exhausted so we told them to go home until you woke up. Stef, I think her name is, the blonde one? She came by again every morning. Only reason she wasn't here today was because she had to talk to social workers and stuff. We called her this afternoon to say that you are awake, but she said she won't be able to make it out till tomorrow morning."

You feel like, up until this moment, you haven't been able to breathe properly. You feel like it's been that way for months, like a heavy weight has been strapped to your chest. But knowing that they sat by your bedside, knowing that they care, knowing that they probably still love you, makes nearly all of the weight fall off of your chest and relief flood your body.

It's not all gone though, because there is still the matter of Jude and whether or not he is still angry. There's still the whole recovery thing, which is absolutely terrifying you. You heard the nurse say something about inpatient care, which means staying in a hospital away from your family for longer and following strict rules and eating _everything _that they give you.

But the difference between thinking about recovery now and thinking about it a couple of weeks ago, is that you are now willing to try. Maybe that's enough.

You fall asleep at 9pm.

* * *

><p>"Callie? Baby?"<p>

The sound of her voice stirs you from your sleep immediately, and you roll over and open your eyes. You are surprised that they have come alone, without even Jude by their side, but you're happy that they are here nonetheless.

You smile and find that there are already tears in your eyes and you haven't even spoken yet.

"Hey…"

They sit on opposite sides of the bed and take a hand each, and Stef kisses your cheek gently, while Lena pushes hair out of your face with her thumb. "Hey baby."

For a moment, all three of you are silent, staring at each other with looks that say mostly everything that needs to be said. But then Stef squeezes your hand and smiles. "we were so worried about you, love."

"I…" You swallow thickly and take a shaky breath. "I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry."

"Shh," Lena soothes. "Don't get worked up just now."

You shake your head. "No, we have to talk about it. I have things I need to say and I'm sure you guys do, too, and I can't put it off any longer."

"How about first you tell us how you are feeling? You gave us quite a fright."

You think about Lena's question for a moment and shrug your shoulders, attempting to consider how to answer this question as honestly as possible. No more _I'm fine, _no more _leave me alone. _"I dunno…tired, I guess. A little achy and stuff, but overall a hundred times better than I was a week ago."

"That's good to hear, really." Stef mumbles. You can sense that she is mad, or upset. You can sense that she is _something, _that she wants to be honest with you like you are going to be with her. It's a big step for all of you, you think.

"I wish that I could go back and stop any of this from happening."

"Honey yo-"

"No," You almost shout, and then you shake your head. "Hear me out. Please."

"Okay."

"I wish that I could restart with all of you, I wish that there was a button to take it all away. I never intended on causing you guys this much pain…I never intended on causing you _any _pain. Things just…they spiralled out of control, you know? I just…I don't know what came over me."

Lena rubs the back of your hand with her thumb softly and her face is like almost-home, like not far from okay. "We know that you didn't mean for any of this, baby."

"It started off with this stupid idea that losing weight would somehow make me stronger or something…I don't know. I was scared, and I hated…I hated _myself_. I just wanted to run and get fit and feel better about myself and then I couldn't stop it. I didn't care about being pretty and skinny and like other girls, I just wanted to…"

"Disappear?" Stef whispers and her voice cracks towards the end of the word. Almost like she feels guilty.

You nod gently and a tear slides down your cheek.

"If I'd known it would get this bad, believe me, I would have come to you for help. I mean, part of me understood where it was headed, but It wasn't like I set out to kill myself."

"It's okay, love."

"No, it's really not. It isn't okay at all. I hurt everyone around me and then I ran away because I couldn't handle the consequences of having you all know about it. It stops now, I promise. I'll try harder to be okay, and I'll make more of an effort to be present. I wont push you away…that is, if you still want me."

Lena squeezes your hand, and Stef shakes her head and looks at you with watery eyes. "Of course we want you baby, of course we do. We're not mad, Callie. We were just worried, okay? We just want you to be safe, everything we do is for you kids to be safe. It's not a question about whether or not we want you, because we will _always _want you, Cal. It's a question of whether or not…_you_ want _us._"

You crease your forehead and stare between the women for a moment before replying "Why wouldn't I?"

"Because we messed up big time. Callie, baby, we should have noticed what was going on with you a lot sooner. We should have tried harder, we should have pulled you closer when you pushed us away. We are so sorry that we let you slip between the cracks…We love you so much, the same way that we love all of our kids. We just want you to be okay, okay?"

By the time Stef has finished speaking, there are tears rolling freely down her cheeks. You take her hand and you squeeze it gently just like she does yours when you are feeling down. You reach over and wipe away the tears and smile at her softly, forgivingly, like a sorry and a thank you all wrapped up in one.

"Okay."

"You're a wonderful girl," Lena says. "You know that?"

You smile and shake your head. "Not really, but I'm working on it."

Somewhere in the distance, a new willow tree is planted.

You are not broken.

Not completely.

_Hold me fast cause I'm a hopeless wanderer and I will learn, I will learn to love the skies I'm under. _


	20. you took me in from the cold

**A/N: as per usual, I want to start by saying thank you so much for your kind reviews. (and I am currently in the middle of writing a small 5 chap story and starting a new multi chapter story which I will post when this is finished)**

**Ps. My Girls United is different from the shows GU. **

_**Enjoy!**_

* * *

><p>Two nights after you wake up, you are officially diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and immediately the doctors, Stef and Lena get to work on trying to figure out a plan of action.<p>

You ask them if you can go home with them and follow a dietary plan there, but the doctors are worried about the chances of relapse and how weak your mental state has been and so they unanimously come up with the decision to send you to a inpatient facility that deals with young females suffering from mental illness and addiction.

You feel guilty because it's expensive, but Stef assures you that their insurance covers it and that it's okay because, even if it did cost her $10,000, she'd be happy to pay that if she knows it'll make you better. You haven't seen Jude yet, although you know that he has seen you. Lena explained that he insisted on visiting as much as humanly possible while you were unconscious, but he hasn't come since you've woken up.

You don't blame him, though. You hurt him, you _left _him.

"_We're a package deal, you know that."_

* * *

><p>Girls United is bigger than you'd thought it would be, you'll grant it that. It's hidden amongst trees away from the city and the beach and the rest of civilisation. The building is tall and white, and surrounded by flowers – more flowers than you've ever seen in your entire life, and you imagine all of the girls, uniting, planting the flowers with the supervision of ten different nurses. All against their own will.<p>

You remind yourself, with every step you take closer to the building, that they are putting you here to save you and not to leave you. You remind yourself that you are here, you are alive, Stef's hand is on your back and you are going to be okay.

You can keep breathing.

This is not forever.

A short brunette with glasses answers the door and she tells you that her name is Rita, and that she'll show you the way to the reception so that Stef can sign you in.

_You are here. You are breathing. You are safe. _

But, the moment that Stef's hand leaves your back, the moment that she steps away from you to sort out the paperwork, you forget everything you've been saying to yourself.

_They are leaving you here. She might never come back. _

_You are insane, Callie. _

There is a crushing in your chest and you know right away that it is a panic attack, that it will be followed by many more panic attacks in the next few weeks.

Sweat beads around your forehead and your breathing picks up along with your heart rate. You look around the large foyer and see a few girls standing at the end of the corridor with their gazes focused on the new girl.

_The new girl who couldn't even keep it together in the first 5 minutes in this place. _

You close your eyes when The ground beneath you sways dangerously and you reach out to try and find Stef, but a hand on your shoulder tells you that she has found you first.

"Callie, breathe."

You open your eyes as Stef lowers you on to a chair and you hear another voice from beside you.

"Does she have these a lot?"

"Not all the time but she has had them on occasion."

Stef kneels down in front of you and holds both of your hands while she stairs into your eyes. "Callie, love. Take deep breaths like we showed you before."

It takes a few more minutes, but eventually your breathing evens out and your heart rate slows and Stef squeezes your hand reassuringly. "Atta girl."

Rita hands you a glass of water and smiles gently and you slump down in the chair, embarrassed.

"It'll be okay, sweets." Stef whispers and she hugs you close.

It makes all of the fear fall away.

You are lead into a room in which Rita explains all of the rules of Girls United while Stef signs all of the papers. She explains that there are two separate sets of rules, one which applies to all of the girls, and one which applies to girls who are here for eating disorders. She hands you both of them on laminated paper to hang up in your room.

List number one:

_Girls must be in bed by 11pm Curfew_

_Girls must be awake for 5:45am (unless stated otherwise) _

_Girls must do assigned chores by 7am _

_Girls must always stay in the Girls United house/yard unless stated otherwise _

_No physical violence _

_Group Therapy every day at 4pm _

_One-to-one Therapy once a week _

_No name calling _

_Absolutely no sharp objects /pills in rooms _

_Always be respectful of others _

_**If these rules are not followed, privileges will automatically be revoked for at least one week. **_

List number two:

_Weigh-in every morning at 5:30am _

_Breakfast at 6:30am always seat in assigned place _

_no exercise unless given permission _

_Girls must stay at dinner table for 30 minutes after finishing meals_

_Plates must be empty _

_Short nails _

_Short sleeves at dinner table _

_Hair tied up at dinner table _

_Absolutely no internet access at any time _

_Until given permission, girls must always be supervised in the bathroom. _

_**If these rules are not followed, privileges will be automatically revoked for at least one week. **_

You look at Stef and and, again, your breathing begins to pick up. Before it worsens, she grabs your hand and smiles. "It's all there to help you, sweets."

You nod reluctantly and sigh. "Why do I have to tie my hair up?"

Rita smiles politely and leans forward in her chair, you wonder if its supposed to intimidate or comfort you. It does neither. "There are some rules that we really prefer not to explain. Let's just say that some of the girls in here are really…smart…when it comes to avoiding food. We take all precautions, Callie, and we hope that you are willing to co operate with that."

You nod your head and look back down at the rules. Most of them you understand, most of them you'd expected.

_Girls must sit at the table for 30 minutes after food is finished. _You'd once read something about how long it takes for food to begin the digestive system, and how throwing up a meal too soon after eating would mean that you'd lose pretty much all of the calories from what you eat.

_No internet access. _You don't even have to think about it and you understand why internet is a no go. One night, when you'd been pretending to do work, you'd stumbled on a set of blogs that caused a little curiosity. You'd sat that night for hours staring at the dim light of your laptop screen, scrolling through phrases of encouragement

_A moment on the lips, forever on the hips _

And then came the pictures – matchstick girls standing tall with more bones than muscle, arms stretched high above their heads, sunshine shining through the gaps in their thighs like a heavenly glow.

You'd been curious enough to return, quite a few times. People would write about their experiences, get courage off of one another.

_Day 4 of fasting was a complete shambles, to say the least. Mom tried to feed me bread lathered in butter and topped with eggs, but somehow I had the courage to stick to my water instead. GW is getting closer, and I'm feeling wonderful about it. Although, sometimes I wonder – when will I stop changing my ugw? Does anyone else think this way? It just seems to get lower and lower. Stay strong, girls! _

Those girls had understood you more than you understood yourself. Although, at the time, you'd laughed at some of their words, pushed them away as though their thoughts were crazier than your own, as though they weren't heading down the same horrible path.

You'd only looked on there four times, but you'd seen enough to stick with you for a lifetime.

Maybe someday, somehow, those girls will get help too.

You smile at Rita and nod your head more firmly. "What happens if I lose my privileges?"

"Well," She says. "You miss out on family day and time out in the yard. I know it might seem a little crazy, keeping you cooped up in here for missing out on simple rules, but everything we do here is for the greater good of our patients. Hopefully you will never be in a position that will require the loss of a privilege."

"Hopefully." You reply.

You are shown to your room after all of the paperwork and legalities are sorted out and you are surprised at how well-kept the rooms are. You have a bed, a desk, and a wardrobe and you are sharing with another girl who, Rita informs you, is currently in one-to-one therapy and so you will be meeting her in an hour or so.

You feel sick when Stef offers to help unpack your suitcase because you know that, soon enough, she will be leaving.

You've never relied on people before. You've never _had _to rely on people because you've always had yourself, and that has been enough for as long as you can remember. You've always said that, as long as Jude has you and you have Jude, then everything Is going to be okay.

But now? Now you need Stef more than you need anything else in the entire world. You need her to stay here, to be stern and be funny and be comforting, you need her to hold your hand because you've never actually been completely alone, not for as long as you will be here, anyway.

She must sense your distress, because she sits down on the edge of the bed and pats the empty space next to her and you take a seat.

"You know why we're putting you here, right?" She asks, and you can't tear your gaze away from the floor.

You do understand, you _do_.

It doesn't make you any less scared, though.

_They care about you. They love you. They want you to get better. _

"Callie, baby, I need you to tell me what's going on in that busy mind of yours." You sigh and shrug your shoulders and find yourself fidgeting with your nails.

"What if..." Your words trail off and you take a deep breath. You promised yourself you'd be more open, you _have _to be more open. "What if I'm not strong enough. What if I don't get better. Will you guys still...Will you still be here?"

Stef doesn't even hesitate for a moment to answer, she brings your chin up so that you are looking directly into her eyes and she nods. "We're in it for the long run, Callie. We will _never _walk away, got it?"

You smile and nod and can't help the tears from falling down your face when she brings you in for a hug.

"Thank you, Stef." You mumble into her shoulder and she pulls back.

"For what?"

You smile. "For being a great mom."

_you brought me in from the cold now how I long, how I long to grow old. _


	21. Girls Divided

**A/N: The last chapters of this story are all going to be _long_. I'd split them up, but I wanted to do it this way. Once I have an idea, I can't not do it. So, anyway, I hope this isn't _too _long, and I hope that I haven't lost many of you (because I feel as though I _have _lost some) and I hope you enjoy and have a wonderful day.**

* * *

><p><strong>Week one <strong>

Recovery is undoubtedly the hardest thing you've ever done. Which is an odd thing to admit considering some of the terrible positions you've been in throughout your life.

You've established the people who don't like you by your second day in the place, and you find that the people who don't like you are the girls recovering from eating disorders. There's only two of them who have bothered to talk to you and had seemed nice enough. They told you that the reason the other girls don't like you is that you're new. They say that it's like high school, everyone has cliques.

The nice girls, Holly and Gabi, are part of the group who actually _want _to get better.

Then there's the group of girls who are recovering from addiction, most of them have made it abundantly clear that they do not like the ED recovery girls because their problems are less trivial, apparently. The most dominant girl in that group, Becka, seems to think that eating disorders are purely artificial, that every one of you have landed yourselves here just because you want to fit into smaller jeans.

Rita constantly has to remind them that starving is just as addictive as drugs.

For the most part, you've been relatively quiet around everyone. Your roommate, Cole, is probably the most decent person you've met since you got here. He tells you that he can't wait to get out of here, that he'll be happy once he's in an LGBT home that isn't filled to the brim with people who insist on calling him _she _and _her_ and telling him that who he is isn't good enough for them.

He also explains that the reason the ED girls stick to themselves is that they teach each other ways of tricking the system and that you should stay clear of that stuff if you ever want to get out of here.

By the end of week one you notice this place for what it really is; a feeding place for the socially unacceptable mentally ill. Cole says that what he _really _hates is the fact that, once they've decided you're well enough, they toss you back out to fend for yourself. Half the time the people aren't really beter, and that's why you've to stay away from the girls who trick the recovery system. The only way to really get out of here and make your life any better is to comply with the rules.

When you'd called stef the night they found you, you'd been thinking recovery would be going home and healing with your family.

You'd been hoping that recovery would be taking some medication and learning how to eat again.

But being face to face with recovery has made you realise that it's both the saviour and the devil all at once.

And It's terrifying.

Recovery is like an angel with a menacing grin, one person had said on an online blog, it's there all white and glowing and louring you in, but the closer you get to it, the further it moves away. When you see recovery, when you see the _face _of recovery, from a distance...she's luminescent, radiant, beautiful. But when you see recovery up close, the _real _face of recovery, her teeth are yellow and decaying, her thoughts are both _get bigger and stronger _and _get smaller and stronger _at the same time.

You realise, now, how your mind associates the word strong to numbers and sizes instead of abilities and knowledge.

_Everything _seems to be associated to your body nowadays.

It's clear that you've let your mind slip. It's clear that you've let rationality run through the cracks in your brain and fade away. You can remember a time when a meal was a meal, and weighing yourself was something doctors did on a yearly basis. You remember a time when you looked at yourself and, while you always noticed the underlaying sadness and fear, you never noticed the lumps and bumps.

You remember a time when you were at least a little sane.

You read a book once, by a man named Tim Burton, in which he told the stories of misfits and oddballs, mummy boys and pin cushion queens and you'd thought it was so strange that his mind could come up with these ideas.

You remember feeling like pin cushion queen. When people come closer, when they wrap their arms around you, the pins only stick in further.

Mummy boy was mistaken for a piñata and broken open at a mexican boys birthday party.

Tim Burton wrote poems and movies and short stories about monsters and children that nobody wanted, and people call Tim Burton crazy because _Gosh, there's no such thing as a boy made entirely of kitchen appliances _but there are children who might as well be.

Like you are. _Were_.

He once said that one persons craziness is another persons reality and the quote always sticks with you because, to some people, not eating for whatever reasons might be a strange concept, it even had been to you before this had started, but now it's just part of your life, part of you.

You look over at the on call nurse sitting at the corner of the rec room after you shake yourself out of your revery and watch as she flicks through the pages of _The perks of being a wallflower _and taps an uneven rhythm with her foot on the floor. You wonder if there's any part of her that might seem crazy to other people. Does she collect weird things? Have weird habits? Are nurses allowed to be even the tiniest bit insane?

Isn't everyone a little crazy in their own way?

That's one of the things you dislike the least, the people in charge look down on the people they are taking care of like they are a burden, like they are in their way, like they are imposing. Maybe not Rita so much, but the rest of them act like they're on a high horse, like they're the most sane people in the whole world.

And then you get doctors like Doctor Lockhart.

And that's another thing you don't like about this place. Doctor Lockhart.

Most of the girls refer to her as The bitch, and the adults refer to her as Mother Theresa.

You don't really refer to her as anything, all you know is that you'd rather be talking to a tree.

She's the kind of pretty that doesn't need any effort. Most of the time she looks like she's just dabbed on some lip gloss and headed out the door. Her hair is always in a prestine bun and she's always wearing these sharp pant suits that look like they cost more than your..._the fosters_...house.

It's not like she isn't kind, she really is. She has a warm smile and a polite hand shake and she's always interested in what you have to say, if you say anything at all, and you think that maybe _that _is the problem. Because she asks questions that you've been avoiding your whole life and it makes your blood boil sometimes.

On your sixth night in Girls United, you get your first therapy session with her.

"So, Callie, tell me a little about yourself."

You're sitting on a deep red leather sofa, picking at a loose thread on the arm, when she speaks up. You don't bother to look up when you shrug.

"Do you have a favourite movie? Song?"

You shrug again.

"Callie, I'm just going to get this out of the way right now. I know that you think you're here to eat and go home. I know that you _think _that gaining weight is the most important aspect of your stay in Girls United. The thing is, Callie, it's not. You can't ever physically heal, not really, if you aren't willing to _mentally _heal. The only way that will work is if you cooperate in these sessions. Understand?"

You sigh and nod your head. "sure."

"So, let's start again. What's your favourite song?"

...

"_Play it again!" _

_an eight year old Jude is jumping up and down at the foot of your bed with a huge grin on his face when you click the button on the CD player. "Cal, Cal, play it again!" _

_You smile and press play, and he leaps up onto your bed so that you can both dance. _

"_mayyyybeeeeeee, you're gonna be the one who saaaaveesss meeeeee." _

_You feel bad for rumaging through your foster brother's CD collection, but it's been a while since you had a good dance party with your brother. He needs it, both of you do. _

"_and afteraallll, you're my wanderwalllllllllll"_

_..._

"I dunno," You say. "I don't have a favourite song. I like a lot of different music."

"Like?"

"uh...my mom used to listen to old stuff a lot and I guess I sorta ended up loving all that stuff. The Smiths, Johnny Cash, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell. Stuff like that."

Doctor Lockhart nods and smiles. "I was a Carpenters girl, myself. It's nice that you like the music your mom liked."

"She played that stuff a lot, I suppose I never really had the option to love anything else when she was around."

"It's nice to pass music taste through generations. What was she like?"

"Who? My mom? uh...nice, I guess."

Doctor Lockhart raises an eyebrow like she doesn't buy your response. "Just nice?"

...

"_momma?" _

_You're four and you're sitting next to your mom in her bed reading a book. You look up to see her face and she smiles. _

"_Yeah?" _

"_When the baby comes...where is he gonna sleep?" _

_Your mom glances at her huge belly. "in your room when he gets a little bigger." _

_You nod and look back at the book, contemplating her answer before you look back up at her. "momma?" _

"_Yeah?" _

"_You wont forget about me when he comes...will you?" _

_Your mom puts down the book she's been reading and wraps her arm around your shoulder. "Callie, baby, I would **never **forget about you. You're my little princess, baby." _

"_Even when you have a new baby to love?" _

_Your mom nods and smiles. "even if I had a million babies to love."_

_..._

You glance at Doctor Lockhart and smile. "She was amazing."

* * *

><p><em><strong>week two<strong>_

It takes you a while to get used to the group therapy and the scheduled meal times, but soon enough you start to do things like you're supposed to, and it makes the prospect of recovery a little easier.

You talk to Doctor Lockhart about your mom and yourself, but you haven't said anything about Jude or the Fosters yet because the guilt still hurts and the aftermath still confuses you. They promised they'd stick by, but you're not entirely sure that they'll be able to with your running away and violating probation.

The thing about this place is that people don't hold back on their opinions, and you find that out at the very end of week two.

You're at group therapy and everyone is chatting back and forth about their addiction and what triggers it and their home lives when Rita directs the conversation towards you.

"What about you, Callie. You haven't talked much since we started these sessions. Tell us a bit about yourself."

One of the girls laughs and shakes your head and you look towards her, she's one of the girls who got transferred here from Juvie and she's made it clear since the moment you got here that she doesn't like you.

"Kiara, do you have a problem?" Rita asks.

The girl smirks and shrugs her shoulders. "Yeah, I got a problem."

"Care to talk about it?"

"Sure. It's her." She looks towards you and rolls her eyes. "I bet that girl has a perfect life, I bet nothing has ever gone wrong. Lemme guess, mommy and daddy don't spend enough time with you cause they're too busy working hard to pay for your fancy private education so you starved yourself for attention. I bet it was _real _hard when they told you that they'd have to send their crazy little baby into a psych facility."

"That's enough, Kiara." Rita warns.

But the girl looks towards you and leans in a little closer. "Shocked that I figured you out so easy? I am _so _sick of girls like _you _comin' in here and actin' all sad and picked on, not wantin' to face that fact that all you are is a spoiled little brat. You girls act like you're victims, like you've ever had any semblance of a hard life...it's bullshit."

"_shut up_." you mumble.

"Can't handle the truth."

The _real _problem with this place, you realise, is that _everyone _thinks that their problems are worse than everyone elses.

Girls starve and puke and they think that's worse because they're not good enough. Girls cut and burn and they think thats worse because it hurts, but it doesn't hurt _enough_. Girls take drugs and drink and they think that's worse because being at home sucks, and being on the streets sucks even _more. _You have bipolar girls fighting with depressed girls, fighting with schizophrenic girls and _no one _says out loud that the reason is because they _all _think they have it the very worst.

They all want to prove that they are the deepest down in the pit of people that are mad and sad and angry and starving and cutting and dying.

They just _say _that it's because they think they're _better_.

You stand up and walk away.

You hate it here.

You thought it'd be easy. You thought it would be a matter of eating what you are supposed to eat, talking about your mom and then going home. You thought it would be simple, you thought it'd be quick.

But really, it's _impossible_. The people are impossible, the meals are impossible, the therapy is _impossible. _You _hate _it.

You're not supposed to be this girl, you're not. You've been dealt a really shitty hand, but you've never complained about it. You've never made anyone else pity you, you've never looked for attention to make the pain of it all go away. You are not supposed to be _this _person.

Eating is supposed to be easy, just like waking up in the morning and smiling along with your family. This is supposed to be _natural. _

But instead you spend all of your time telling yourself that you don't deserve the things people are giving you. You tell yourself that you are not worthy of love, or hope, or dreams, and that Jude is worthy of a million times more than that. You tell yourself that you are not important and you lead yourself to this.

Because _you _made this happen. _You _stopped eating. _You _ran away. _You _nearly killed yoruself.

And it was _you_ who almost enjoyed it.

And now you're here. Now you're forcing food down your throat while tears run down your cheeks. Your life is eat, chew, swallow, eat, talk, chew, talk, swallow, open up, eat, smile, eat, eat eat eateat_eat_.

Food is life.

Or so, they say that food _gives you life_. And that should be easy enough to understand. Because, now, you _do _want to live. You're not 100% sure of it, maybe just 40, but that's 40% more sure than you were a week ago.

You just want to get through _this _first.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I think that things need to get worse before they get better. I didn't want to just make callie go into this place and BAM healed, that's not how it works in real life. So the next chapter is going to be a tough one for Callie, but it'll also be the most important one and the one that will lead up to the final three chapters that'll be a little less..._angsty _as the previous ones. **


	22. Under the tide

**A/N: Thanks so much for all the reviews/follows/favourites, it means so much! This is one of the chapters I've pretty much had sitting in a folder nearly completed for like two months so that's why i'm updating so quickly. I've nearly finished the next chapter, and then there'll only be two chapters left!**

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><p><em><strong>Week four<strong>_

The weeks drag by slowly.

In between being admitted and now, you seem to have lost the motivation to keep going. You can't really explain it, but it's like someone has come along and pressed the pause button again and you're finding it hard, or not trying hard enough, to press play again.

You lose your privileges two weeks in a row, but it doesn't bother you so much. You spend most days knitting, staring out of the window, watching as the cherry blossoms slowly disappear. It gets warmer.

Three girls have left in the time that you have been here. They have been pumped up, medicated, and deemed normal enough to be released into the big bad world.

You haven't talked to anyone in six days.

Doctor Lockhart tells you that it happens a lot. Recovery is not easy, she says, there are always going to be bad days. But one bad day turns into two, and then they seem endless. The road seems dull and you aren't quite sure how you will manage to continue going down it alone.

Stef comes three days after they decide it's time to insert another feeding tube.

She sits across from you in a small family room near Doctor Lockharts office, and they tell you that this is a special allowance because, normally, loss of privilege means loss of family time. Her eyes are tired and red, and her lips are pressed tight like she is holding in a secret.

You want to reach out and take her hand. You want her to make it all better.

Instead, you stare past her face and keep your eyes focused on a healthy living poster with curled in edges and stained faces.

You stay that way, eerily silent, for eleven minutes before Stef decides to speak.

"You promised that you'd try."

The lady in the poster's eyes are greenblue like the ocean, and she smiles fake like maybe her husband is having an affair, but she is too afraid of loneliness to leave him.

It makes you think about all of the people in the world who place a well polished mask on their face in the morning so that the rest of the world can be jealous of their gleaming life, their riches, their husbands, their little brats. People are unhappy…mostly everyone is always unhappy.

Maybe if you get a nice pretty mask, then they will let you go home. Then, they'll stop pumping cream cheese and pasta down your throat and they'll stop handing you magic tablets that make you sleep when it is appropriate. Maybe that's why the other girls get to leave so quickly. Put on a smile, the world says, and you'll be perfectly normal.

"Callie, I don't know how to do this…Help me out, please?"

The silence lingers for a moment longer before you break your gaze with fake-smile lady, and you look up at Stef.

"_You _don't have to do anything." You mumble.

If she is taken aback by the tone of your voice, she does a great job at hiding it. She leans in closer and shakes her head. "You can't do this, Cal. You can't keep hurting yourself and then expecting us to just accept that. That's not how it works."

"so you think that you're here to protect me?"

She sighs and slumps back in her chair. "I'm a mother, of course it's my job to protect."

"You're a mother…sure," You mutter. "But you're not_my_ mother."

_Stop hurting her. Stop it. Stopitstopitstopit._

You shake your head and laugh. "This is bullshit."

"Don't." Stef mutters, her voice harsh and stern.

You laugh again, bitter and angry. "Don't what? Tell the truth? That was our agreement, right? Complete honestly, complete trust. So, why not? Why not explain that every minute that you keep me here is one more miserable minute for me to realise how much I hate myself, and how much I hate everyone else who decides to make decisions that I am more than capable of making myself. Why are you here, Stef? Is it to see me, or is it to give them permission to stick a tube down my fucking nose?"

You stand up and you're pointing your fingers, voice tight and angry, and you are unsure of where this is coming from.

You're not mad at Stef.

You're mad at _you_.

"Everyone acts like they are on my damn side. Keep on going, Cal. Be a _strong _girl, Cal. You can do it, sweetheart! But it's all a load of crap. No one, not _ever_has bothered to be on my side. I've always done it alone, Stef. I've always done _everything _alone. Why does this have to be any different?"

"Because we want you to come home." Stef whispers. Your hands fall down at your sides, your eyes fill with unwanted water. "We love you."

You fall down on your chair and look down at your shaking hands as though they do not belong to you. "I just want this to be over." You whisper.

Stef reaches out to hold you, but you pull back.

_You're worthless, pathetic, alone, uglyfatlost._

"I'm so tired."

You watch as your hands turn wet from the tears dripping from your eyes. You want them to stop, go back inside, they're not allowed to be here. You want to be strong, be tough, keep on going. You want to be okay, be happy, be safe.

It's hard to decide what you want.

"I know, baby." She says, and her voice is _I forgive you_.

"I can't sleep at night. There's this girl down the hall who screams and they can't make her shut up. The pills aren't working, the food isn't working, the therapy is making me even more miserable. I hate it here, Stef. I want to come home."

Stef moves across the room and kneels in front of you. "you'll be able to come home once you are getting better."

"No," you say quietly. "I can't do it in here. I hate it. Please just…let me come home now. I'll eat, I promise."

"You can't, love. I'm sorry."

Somehow, you aren't quite sure when, you go from politely asking, to begging, to shouting.

"Please, Please, Stef, just let me come home!"

She's reaching out for you, trying to bring you back into the world of sane, trying to give you solid ground. But no matter how far she stretches, no matter how loudly she screams your name, no matter what she does, you are sinking.

"Calm down, Callie!"

You are thrashing and yelling and there are arms wrapped around you tight, which only makes the panic escalate. "Get off me! Get off me, let me go home!"

A pinch on the arm.

"I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry."

Her face blurs into a dot. "Please, mom."

And then there's nothing.

.

When you open your eyes, she is still there. She tells you that Doctor Lockart allowed her to stay with you until you woke up, and then she should go home.

Instead, her eyes linger on you and her hands squeeze at yours tightly.

"We're not leaving you, Callie." She whispers. "You know that, right?"

"I'm scared." You admit. "What if…what if I'm not strong enough?"

You'd already admitted it to her before, but you feel that fear now more than ever.

"You are. No doubt about it, love. You're a warrior."

She says it like she hasn't a doubt in the world, like she's always believed in you, like she's always had faith in you. Like she _knows _that you'll keep breathing, keep pushing, keep living.

That night, you go to therapy.

The next day, you start eating again.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Week Five <strong>_

You learn how to voice your feelings because Doctor Lockhart says you have to heal mentally before you can heal physically.

You talk to her about your mom and dad and how it felt to lose them, and how you're not sure you can ever fully forgive him for taking her away from you. You tell her about Lena, Stef, Brandon, Jesus, Mariana and Jude and how they are your support system. You tell her about Liam, about your foster parents that abandoned and hurt you.

You tell her that you don't know why you stopped eating and she tells you that she's here to help you figure it out, that it's okay.

She's incredibly patient, and she always listens and nods and has something to say in return.

You have family sessions and fight with everyone about the bad decisions you have made, and Jude doesn't say a word, but Doctor Lockhart says that the day will come when you both figure out your feelings. She says that Jude probably feels guilty and mad, he's probably confused, and so you don't hurt so much when you see him because you know that it'll eventually be okay.

You learn that arguments are important in the recovery process, they help you discover hidden emotions and figure out why you hurt, and why you've hurt other people. They help you forgive, and they help everyone else forgive _you_.

You learn to knit and watch cherry blossoms appear on the trees at the back of the building.

You make friends, you avoid enemies.

You just _try_.

Week seven, and you're 80% sure that you want to see another year, another birthday, another sunrise.

_You begin to heal. _


	23. Bloom

**A/N: I loved writing this chapter. I really did. I like angst, but I also like the part of angst when the angst drips away and things start to get a little easier. When the characters are sort of content and things get resolved. I learned today that I especially love writing it. **

**Two chapters left, mega sad face. I've loved writing this story. But I'm also excited to finish so that I can concentrate on my other stuff. I recently moved, am about to start a new job and do my last year of university so updates aren't going to be regular at all on anything, I'll only get to write when I get the chance to sit down – between working, lectures, work placement, and dissertation I think that it's going to be a jam packed year but I'll do the best I can! **

**Have a wonderful day :) **

_**Week eight **_

"_Raindrops and roses..." _

"_and whiskers on kittens?" _

"_Yes! Bright copper kettles..." _

"_and warm woollen mittens!" _

"_Brown paper packages tied up with strings, Sing it darling!" _

"_These are a few of my favourite things!" _

_Momma laughs and sits down in front of you and kisses your cheek. You reach up and push a stray piece of hair out of her face. You smile, and she does too. She always does. _

"_Momma, Can I ask you a question?" You say it gently, like it might be a secret and she nods. She always does. _

"_You'll never leave me, right?" _

"_Nope. Not in a million years." _

_You laugh. "You can't get a million years, silly!" _

_She smiles. "Not in a million years. Not in a billion years, or a trillion years. Not in lightyears, I'll never leave you. We're infinite, my sweet little princess" _

_You raise an eyebrow. You're only five. "What's infinite?" _

"_It's the biggest number, it's the biggest thing. It doesn't end, not ever." _

_You nod, slowly. "We're infinite?" _

"_Were infinite." _

You almost think that you hear her voice jammed somewhere between your brain and your eardrum, but you realise that it's Doctor Lockhart, that she's leaning on her desk and staring at you intently.

"Sorry, I...what was the question?"

Doctor Lockhart smiles and shakes her head. "It's okay, a lot of people drift. Were you mad at her when she died?"

You nod and you realise that your eyes are filled with tears, that the sound of singing is still looming in the back of your head. "Yeah. Pretty mad."

"That's normal, you know. To be mad."

"She promised she'd never leave." You find yourself saying, and you're wiping your eye with your sleeve. "I mean. I know, logically, that's an impossible promise to keep but...I dont know...I felt _betrayed?_"

"You thought that she'd be there until you got older, you thought she'd see you grow up. That's understandable."

"It's more than that, though." You say. You look down at your fidgeting hands. "She wasn't like normal moms. Y'know? She was so..._fun_. She loved me so much, I never thought that anyone could love that much. But my mom? She loved me _so _much. She said that she'd _always _be here. That she'd watch me graduate school, that she'd see me off to college and visit me every minute she could. She said we'd be like the gilmore girls. She said that she'd teach me how to play good songs on guitar, that she'd be there when I get married and have kids. She _promised_. I know it's silly to be mad, and I'm not so much anymore but I felt so _betrayed_."

Doctor Lockhart nods and jots something down on her pad. "Don't you ever think that she never broke that promise? Do you ever think to yourself that she's always going to keep it."

"I dont..."

"Your dreams. You say that they're clear as day, that you even _smell _her. I'm not here to tell you how to interpret them, Callie. But think about the dreams."

It's not like you've never thought it before. That the dreams are your mother, the part of her that never left you, that part that have been locked inside you for as long as you are breathing. You've thought about it a lot, actually. Your mom knew that when she agreed to infinity, she wasn't just saying that she'd be here. Alive. She was saying that she'd always be in your heart, in your mind, in your dreams. And then she'd be here when you take your last breath.

"I'm not mad anymore." You say. "I haven't been, not since..."

"Since?"

You sigh. "Not since I met the Fosters."

It's not easy to admit that they play a part in letting go of your mom. You never want to imagine that they could ever possibly replace her, but you are willing to admit that they can help you with all of the things she can no longer help you with.

"You love the Foster family, yes?"

You nod. "I do."

"So you have to learn to trust them. You have to learn to let them be _your _family."

You smile. "I know. I'm already doing that."

_**Week ten**_

"_Callie, if you could be anything, what would you be?" _

"_I dunno...I never really thought about it." _

"_Anything for the rest of your life. If you could be _anything _what would you be?" _

"_uh...happy?" _

Sometimes it's hard to imagine life getting any better once you've hit the bottom of the pit. It's like an eternal darkness, just black for as far as you can see. And it hurts. A lot. And then the pain is replaced with numb, so numb that you forget yourself.

When life is like this, you forget about feeling, or seeing, or enjoying. You forget about the things that you love. You forget what life used to be like, what music used to sound like, what food used to taste like.

And then it can often begin to brighten up.

It's not like a _sudden _beam of bright white light. It's nothing like that, it's more like you've been climbing up the wall of a hole in the ground through a 80 degree uphill rock pile for months and you can finally see a small ray of light peaking out of the top. It's still far away, there's still work, but you might actually make it.

_You might actually make it. _

There have been times, over the past ten weeks, where you have felt emotions so intense that you thought the ground might swallow you up. Family therapy brings anger.

"_I don't know what makes you think you have the right to put me in this place in the first place, you're not even my parents!" _

"_Well clearly you will never be capable of taking care of yourself if you keep going down this damn road. What gives us the right? Your inability to think about your family when you are depriving yourself of simple nutrition is what gives me the damn right." _

"_I hate you." _

"_No, Cal. You don't." _

Of course, Family therapy is fundamentally important in your recovery. Those arguments are, too. Although they happen much less nowadays. You learn to forgive each other for using the wrong words, for being _too _honest. You learn to forgive each other for _everything_.

_You might actually make it. _

You've spent too long being unhappy. Too long dwelling on the past, and worrying about the future. Too long pushing yourself further into the ground where no one can save you. It's just been _too _long and now you're finally ready to be _okay _again.

_You are going to make it._

You read.

After Stef visits and leaves, you begin to read. You read _everything_. Books, papers, short stories. _Anything_. It's always nice stories, always happy endings, always truthful plots. Words heal you, they teach you what it's like to feel again through other peoples minds. Words are so powerful that they have begun to build you back up again.

Words, and family.

You talk to Doctor Lockhart openly and honestly. You tell her about your Mom and how you'd seen her so clearly when you were in the motel. You tell her about the dreams, about how you could honestly smell her it was so clear. You tell her that you miss your mom, that sometimes it's difficult to put the way you feel into words.

You love Stef and Lena, but the therapist helps you realise that you're scared of them, too. Not scared of anything that they can do to you, not really. You're just scared of what happens when you are legally theirs, you never want to feel as though your mother was never really there. Because she was. And she made a difference.

But Stef writes you a letter telling you to trust them, that they're always going to be here, that she'll never replace your mother, she'll just be _another _mom. A different mom.

So you realise that you now have three moms. One who's a cop, one who's a teacher, and the other who's a ghost.

And the fact that she's a ghost hurts every day. It never really gets much easier, but Doctor Lockhart teaches you ways to deal with it.

You paint.

You paint flowers, and girls, and skylines. Grass, guitars, apples.

And you play guitar. Lena sends you a brand new acoustic and a few books to practice with and you spend an hour every day learning new chords so that you can learn new songs.

By the time week four and five are over, you've learned 5 new songs.

Getting better is an uphill battle, it's taken a long time, but you're getting there.

You smile more. Bad days slip through your fingers, your jeans begin to fit a little better, food still scares you but you know you need to eat.

Food is Scary.

You like oranges and red peppers.

Food is Scary...no..._life? _

You eat bread and pasta and you don't cry.

Food is _life_.

You don't know how much you weigh. Maybe that's okay.

You take the happy pills and the sleepy pills and you slip into dreamland with a smile on your face so that you can see the faces of the people you love. They wrap their arms around you and throw flower petals like confetti and tell you that you are beautiful, that you are _strong_. You dream about music and art and the lives inside the pages of your books.

Recovery is not and never will be _easy. _

But you're not so reluctant to try anymore. You want joy, you want happiness and laughter and you want to go home. _Home. _And be with your _family _again.

_Home. Family. _

Last week, you saw a sunrise.

You want to see one hundred more. At least.


	24. Begin again

**A/N: And so this is the second last chapter. Although, considering the next chapter is an epilogue, this is _technically _the last chapter. **

**Crazy. Thank you for the reviews and have a wonderful day.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Week 13<strong>_

You leave on a saturday.

It's warm enough now that you don't need a coat and the sun is high in the sky, there is not a cloud in sight.

Everyone is gathered in the rec room and you are standing in front of a large cake with white and red icing that says _**Congrats, Callie, hope you live a wonderful life**_. Everyone shakes your hand and hugs you and you eat an entire slice of cake without even considering the side effects. You're too content to worry.

When you came here, you weighed 87lbs. You were unhappy, you were scared, and you were pretty much broken. When you came here, thirteen weeks ago, ninety-one days ago, your life was measured in numbers on a scale, calories on a plate.

Your life was measured in ability to wrap your hand around your limbs.

Your life was nearly finished.

With each passing day under this roof, new life has been breathed into your system. You've been given more days, more challenges, more life.

And before, that would have terrified you. Before, you were ready to go. You were ready to say goodbye. You were ready to die. No question, you were okay with it.

And now you're not. Now you thank your lucky stars that you got brought in from the cold, and that you were willing to work hard to get to here and now.

Life is not, and should never be, measured in numbers. Not days, nor pounds, nor calories.

It should be measured in laughs, smiles, tears, songs, movies, experiences. Pain is okay, and so is fear.

Because if you feel pain, then you will still be able to feel joy.

The world is beautiful. It surprises you that you've never noticed it before. It's like you've been given crystal clear contact lenses with which you see _everything _with this perfect clarity. The world is absolutely breathtaking. The tree's and the sky, the clouds, the ocean, the people. It's all just _amazing_.

It's also pretty terrifying, too.

But it doesn't have to be insurmountably so, not anymore.

You leave on a saturday, and the sky is a beautiful blue. The grass is a wonderful green. You weigh 115lbs.

Stef picks you up at 3:15pm, and you are glad that she has come alone because you aren't quite ready for the barrage of hugs and questions you'll face with everyone else quite yet. You're excited to see them, though, just not _quite _ready.

She takes your bags, and you say goodbye to Rita and Doctor Lockhart long after you've said goodbye to the girls.

"_Be safe, okay? You call. Anytime." _

"_Thank you. For everything." _

"_You're a wonderful girl." _

You step out of the building and your heart is pounding.

_Are you ready for this?_

* * *

><p>On the drive home, Stef stops off at your favourite diner and you eat chicken while she eats fries and you laugh at the waiter because he almost falls over four times. She doesn't ask you if the food is okay, she doesn't ask you if you're scared. She just treats you like nothing ever happened, but with a look in her eyes that says she's glad you're okay and she's happy to be with you right now. In this moment.<p>

But the back of your mind is

_Are you going to be okay? _

It takes two hours to get home, and you find nerves fluttering at the bottom of your stomach the entire way. You haven't been home in so long, and the only time you catch it's scent is when you cling on to Stef and Lena, when you catch it on their clothes.

_Is it going to be like last time? _

You've only seen Jude 6 times since you left, and you wonder if he'll ever truly forgive you. You're willing to give him time.

_Callie before wouldn't be able to do this. The old callie would have ran. _

When she stops the car, your heart is beatbeatbeating.

_It's not going to be like last time. You have a family. _

You take a step towards the house.

_You can do this. They love you_.

You open up the door.

_It's nothing like the last time. You are loved. _

You step through the threshold and you feel it.

_Home_.

You are not wandering anymore, you are not floating, you are not a ghost.

You are not hopeless, or helpless, or anything_less_.

You are safe, loved, and warm.

And you are _okay_. Happy.

You are part of this family. Forever.

_It's not like the last time. It's so, so much better._

* * *

><p>"You awake?"<p>

You roll over to find Jude hovering at the doorway in the darkness and you nod your head. Hesitantly he moves towards you and stands in front of the bed.

"What's up?"

He takes a deep breath. "It's a clear night. I thought we could..."

"Sure. Let's go."

You take him by the hand and lead him to the yard, just like you did when you were kids. It used to be a way of escaping the reality of life, it used to be a way of distracting him from pain.

Now it's just nice.

You lay back on the grass, and never once do you let go of his hand.

"Are you still mad at me?" You ask.

Jude stays silent for a moment before he turns to you. "I was never angry, Cal."

"You can admit it."

He shakes his head. "I was scared. I didn't want to lose you."

You squeeze his hand tight and smile. "You won't, baby. I mean it this time."

"Good," He says. "Because I need you."

"Thanks."

"For what?" He asks.

"For sticking around when I didn't have the guts to."

* * *

><p>None of it has ever been easy.<p>

There isn't a handbook on life, it isn't crystal clear, there are no answers written in the stars. There's no way to ensure how it will end up, there's no way to erase the past. The more time you spend dwelling on mistakes and wondering what will happen in the future, the less things you will get to experience, the less things you will get to enjoy.

You can try and do it whatever way you want. Whatever way you think might be the easiest. Take shortcuts, look for tips and tricks, go fast or slow, up or down. The thing is, it's not a clear path and, no matter what you do, it never will be. Life isn't easy, it's not _supposed _to be easy.

You have the path you have because of _you_. It's not fate, or design, or _anything_. You make personal decisions that lead you left or right. You decide when you're too tired to keep walking, you decide when you want to pick up the pace so that things are a little more upbeat. You decide.

Just like you decided that you didn't want to eat.

Doctor Lockhart tells you not to pin all of the blame on yourself. She says that mental illness is just as real as physical illness, that it's just as easy to contract and just as hard to cure. She explains that it doesn't make you weak, or stupid, or silly. She explains that it can happen to _anyone_. Mental illness knows no name, no age, no gender.

You didn't stop eating because you wanted to be thin.

Although, you didn't need Doctor Lockhart to help you figure that out. You knew that from the very beginning. Common misconception when it comes to eating disorders: it's an out of control diet.

No, it's an out of control brain.

You stopped eating for an array of different reasons. You wanted to take up less space, you wanted to be good at something, you wanted to be in control of something, you just simply did not deserve food.

But now you are conducting lists of all the reasons you do need to eat.

Number one: Food is an energy source. Without food, you cannot run, you cannot paint, you cannot play guitar or dance to cheesy pop music. Without food, your body cannot continue functioning.

Number two: You are worth more than numbers on a scale, or calories on a plate. You are worth more than everything you thought of yourself before. You are worth more.

Number three: You want to live. Plain and simple.

On the night after you come home and have a conversation with Jude, Lena makes macaroni and cheese.

Everyone sits around the dining table buzzing with chat and you are filled with a feeling you aren't quite sure how to describe. You sit back and watch as Lena passes the salad to Stef, as Mariana passes the ketchup to Jesus, as Jude passes the salt to Brandon. You watch things fold out seamlessly and comfortably, you watch them talk about their day and how school was great but the fire drill was a pain. They talk about when you'll be coming back to school, and Mariana puts so much emphasis on the word sister when they talk about the adoption that you can feel the love radiating from her smile.

The room is calm, but loud at the same time. Everyone is involved with everyone elses words, they are all so interested and all so intertwined and you can't stop your mouth from forming a small smile.

There are some things you'll never be sure of in life.

This family is no longer one of them.


	25. Epilogue

**A/N: So it's the last chapter, wow. **

**Thank you so much. I'm feeling a tad disheartened by fanfiction right now due to a really really negative response to a story which I immediately deleted and a lack of response to the last chapter I posted of this and so I was planning on taking a break, but I figured I might aswell just post the last chapter anyway. To those of you who have faved, followed and reviewed – thank you. To those who have said lovely things on every chapter, it means so **_**so **_**much. Thanks ComfyChair, Sleepoversat3b, Lacorra, RL13436 & Gleefan13 for the consistently wonderful reviews. I'm terrible at responding to reviews just because I never know what to say, so I thought I'd just leave it till the end. Thank you thank you thank you. **

**To gleefan13, thank you so much for listening to my upset rambles, you're the best. **

**Hope you've all enjoyed the story, and I would love it if you left me some feedback after this chapter. **

**I've put speech in italic because it might be easier to follow that way.**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Two years later. <strong>_

You're not much of a speaker, especially not in front of crowds. And, so, it surprises you that you have even made it as far as this podium. You've tossed and turned all week, thinking of all the worst scenarios in your head, thinking that you might say the wrong thing – that you might not be able to say anything at all.

You're happy that you've been made valedictorian. It's a reminder of how far you've come since the first time you stepped through the doors of this school. It's a reminder of how far you've come full stop. You just aren't entirely sure how it is you're going to get through it.

You take a deep breath and smile out at the crowd of excited graduates and proud parents and you find the familiar faces that keep your feet firmly on the ground. They smile back at you.

"_It's crazy to me that I'm standing up here today. Truth be told, a few years ago, I had no idea who or where I was going to be by the end of high school. I had no dreams or ambitions for my future, I focused entirely on where I was in that moment. Either that, or my mind was stuck in the past. My life wasn't about which college I'd go to, or which grades I would get, it was about making sure myself and my little brother were safe, that we had a home, and that the home would last longer than a couple of months." _

You find Jude's eyes in the crowd and he smiles at you softly and reaches his hand up to touch his heart. You think about how far both of you have come in trusting each other, you think about how scared you are about leaving him, but how happy you are that you're leaving him with _them_. You take another deep breath and continue.

"_When I sat down to write this speech, I ran through a million different ways of saying what it was I wanted to say. I honestly wasn't entirely sure what it was I wanted to say to begin with. Did I want to tell everyone to follow their dreams? Did I want to talk about how far we've come? How far we still have left to go? Who would I quote? Who inspires me? More importantly, _who inspires all of us_? I didn't have any cute little anecdotes that would make everyone laugh, would I _have _to make everyone laugh?" _

Out in the crowd, Mariana is smiling at you proudly and she waves subtly when she notices that you're looking directly at her. You couldn't ask for a better sister. She's your rock, no doubt about it.

"_Then, a couple of weeks ago, I found my mom in the kitchen in the middle of the night crying." _You look directly at Stef with a sad smile and she nods her head to say that you should continue. _"I went back to bed before she could notice that I had even been there, but I spent the rest of the night wondering what it was that upset her so much. Then, I started thinking about all of the times she's found me in the same position and all of the things she has done over the past couple of years to make me feel better." _

Stef gives you one of her warm supportive mom smiles that always makes you feel better in any situation and, in that moment, all of the fear and worry over speaking in front of these people just falls away. It's just you and your family, just you talking to your family.

"_I found out the next day that my mom was crying because I'd been accepted into a university in a different state and it made me realise something incredibly important: If I was going to stand here and talk to everyone in this audience about something inspiring or important, what better to talk about than our parents?" _

Everyone in the crowd nods in agreement, and you watch as a few people turn around to find their parents in the crowd. It's confirmation that you've found the right topic, it's confirmation that they all get it.

"_The thing is, it doesn't really matter who we were when we started out in high school. Me? Well, you all know who I was when I joined this school, a lot of you know who I was _before_I started here. I feel like it is important to say that, while school has shaped me socially and academically, my parents have shaped me in every other way. See, I used to think that I was one of the unlucky kids. In a lot of ways, I really was. The mother that held me in her belly and taught me how to swim was not the same mother that saw me struggle with bullies in middle school, or algebra in high school. She was not the same mother that stood by me when I was depressed, she was not the same mother that taught me to appreciate myself when I thought I wasn't good enough to deserve food." _

Even today it's still a little difficult to talk about. A long time ago, you were lost. So lost that you almost completely disappeared. So lost that you almost abandoned everyone that you love, everyone that loves _you_. And even though you're much better now, even though you eat now and smile now, you still have days which are unbearably hard. Days when you wake up and the first thought you have is whether or not you can face getting out of bed, days where you fight about food with your moms and fight about life with yourself.

But you are much better. You are still healing, but you are coping with healing and that will always be okay.

"_But the thing is, my misfortune was the same thing that made me the luckiest girl alive. I got a second chance, a second home, a second family. I'm lucky enough to say that I have had three moms in my lifetime that have taught me all of the valuable life lessons that most people get from a mother and a father." _

You look up at the sky and smile. You don't see your mom so much anymore when you sleep. Sometimes you wake up and, for a split second, imagine her sitting at the edge of your bed smiling. Sometimes you catch her scent when you are sleeping. Most of the time, she's just a memory.

"_My mother was just a whisper on the tip of my tongue when I woke up in the middle of the night gasping for breath. She was the person who taught me right from wrong, left from right, and how to properly hold a knife and fork. Although she died long before I developed Anorexia, she was the one who taught me that the only way to get better was to depend on my new family." _

You look out at the crowd and notice the supportive smiles on your classmates faces, they nod their head and the silently tell you that it's okay, that you're brave, that they get it. You look at Stef and you cover your heard with your hand.

"_My mom, who's a cop, taught me how to rely on others. She taught me that pain is not weakness, but facing pain and overcoming challenges is fearless. My mom, the cop, taught me that I am in this life to help other people. She helped me pick the best college in which to study psychology, and she taught me that I have a unique gift for helping kids like me. _Callie_, she always says, _you're so good at protecting people. You know that, right?_ And she is right, she's always right." _

Stef chuckles and nods her head, and you laugh a little too, thinking of all the arguments you'd had in which you had stated that you were in the right, in which you'd said that you didn't understand why parents always seemed to think they're in the right.

"_My mama, yes I did just call her mama in front of this incredibly large crowd, the teacher taught me to accept some protective arms when the world seems to be throwing everything wrong my way. She taught me to love myself, to accept myself, and she also taught me that no good mac and cheese should be lathered in ketchup." _

Everyone in the crowd laughs and Lena, who is seated behind you, yells in agreement. You turn to face her and she winks, and you smile gratefully.

"_I know there are people who are wondering why it is that I'm standing here telling you stories about my parents, about my life. But we've all been there. _

_Whether you've always had the same family, whether you have one mom or two or a mom and a dad or a mom or a dad, you've been in a position where you've had to learn from them. They teach us solitude, safety, warmth, math, discipline, respect. They teach us things that, sometimes, we think we might never need. _

_But then one day you're alone and you remember that you're mother told you that it's okay to be scared, or that your father told you to always find something to distract yourself when you're feeling down." _

You'll never be able to explain fully how grateful you are to have become a part of the AdamsFoster family. You'll never find the right words or the right _amount _of words to explain just how much they've changed your life. Just how much they've bettered you. You never know how to say it, but you know that they know.

You see it in their eyes, in their smiles, in their hugs.

You look at Jesus and he throws a supportive fist in the air and whispers _go callie _so that only you can understand it, and you have to suppress a laugh.

Brandon smiles and you think about how happy you are to have your brother be, not only your sibling, but also your best friend.

"_We are all responsible for ourselves, and we've all worked hard to get to where we are today, but let us not forget that none of us would be here if it weren't for our parents. _

_For the mothers that taught us to always tie our shoelaces. _

_For our fathers that taught us the right way to pitch a ball. _

_For our parents who taught us that violence is never the answer. _

_And for our parents that taught us to hit back twice as hard. _

_We are who we are because our parents taught us right from wrong, up from down, left from right. _

_And I think we should remember that as we move on to our next chapter." _

You smile and look around at Lena. _"Mama, thank you." _

You find Stef's face in the crowd. _"Mom, thank you." _

You look up at the sky. _"Momma, thank you." _

And then you throw your hand up in the air. _"To the parents!" _

Everyone cheers.

You feel wonderful.

* * *

><p><em>Hold me fast, hold me fast cause i'm a hopeless wanderer <em>

_and I will learn, I will learn to love the skies i'm under _

_the skies i'm under _


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